


my dear, it is not so dreadful here

by thedivinemove



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hades and Persephone Mythology Fusion, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Antichrist, Apocalypse, Biblical References, Canon-Typical Violence, Christ, Cunnilingus, Demonic Possession, Demons, Eating Disorders, F/M, I'm Sorry, Misty/Cordelia & Madison/Zoe in later chapters, Played Blasphemy Bingo Writing This, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Time Travel, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-08-16 16:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedivinemove/pseuds/thedivinemove
Summary: He smells like ash and dirt and death, and her breath catches, for the last time. “Don’t scream,” he says.And they plunge into the ground.Or: the Lord of the Underworld steals the Daughter of Heaven; the Earth pays the price.





	1. one for sorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [my dear, it is not so dreadful here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16589114) by [larasorna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/larasorna/pseuds/larasorna)



 

> _Even the dark needs things to eat. To love. Is there a difference? We consume what we love, its purpose and sustenance. We feast on its glory and sedate ourselves with its beauty. Anyway. The dark was hungry. The dark is always devouring, always searching for the light that defines it in opposition._
> 
> Mabel, Episode 18: Unusual Hungers, by Mabel Martin

 

 

**-**

 

**i. one for sorrow.**

-

 

She extends her hands over the dying deer, brows furrowed in concentration. She feels the deer’s slowing heart, the tender thread of his soul, ready to float away. The whole world narrows and she draws on the earth, and the air, and the light inside herself, and _fixes him_.

She steps away, observing as a fawn of the same coloring as the deer before stands on shaking legs. There is no wound marring his body. His heartbeat is strong – she can still feel the connection, even stronger than before, and Mallory’s own heart seems about to burst, so filled with happiness and the joy of giving life. The witches gathered behind her let out gasps of amazement. Miss Cordelia looks upon her with a proud smile, victory lighting up her face.

The fawn walks slowly into the field, his wobbly knees knocking into each other as if it’s the very first time he stands on the ground. With eyes shining, Mallory follows after, ready to protect him from harm, relishing in the feeling of their souls connected like two links in a chain.

As she walks, flowers brush her exposed calves, the thin white fabric of her dress billowing in the wind. It’s still warm, despite the coming autumn and the leaves turning golden on the trees; their soft whisper turns into a louder rustle as the wind rapidly gains strength.

And then, the earth shakes.

Mallory freezes in place. Her fawn dashes into the trees and disappears from view, and as the earth continues to shake, the ground in front of her, inexplicably, starts to cave in.

The sky darkens. The air grows cold.

A man emerges from the cavern. Golden-haired and dressed in black, with eyes shining a blue so bright it hurts to watch. Mallory averts her gaze, hurriedly stepping back. She can see the witches running towards them, Miss Cordelia up front, a look of pure terror painted across her face. Mallory’s blood turns cold, and she runs, too.

In a fluid movement, the man is upon her; his arms wrapped in a vice-like grip around her, keeping her pinned in place. She thrashes in his embrace, but he gives her no mind. “It’s payback time, Cordelia,” he calls out in a silky, cultured voice, that somehow carries across the field, “and I’ve come to collect.”

He looks down at Mallory then, his long hair falling over her face, his breath tickling her cheek. He smells like ash and dirt and _death_ , and her breath catches, for the last time. “Don’t scream,” he says.

And they plunge into the ground.

 

-

 

They fall through the earth, through the weak flashes of colors that eventually drown in the darkness. Mallory doesn’t scream. She doesn’t scream because her breath is lost, and her lungs are filling with dirt, and all she can do is claw at the man’s clothes, her fingers digging into the dark velvet of his coat – the only purchase in their freefall through the void.

At last they land, on what seems to be black tile floor. Mallory collapses to the ground, gasps for air with a terrible croaking sound, but nothing seems to ease the pressure. It hurts, so badly, as if her insides might burst any moment. She tries another breath, and she feels a shock of pain so powerful she retches. Sweat drips down her face as she leans down on her hands and knees and dry heaves; nothing comes, except more pain.

“Just—stop doing that,” the man’s voice comes from above her, impatience lacing his words, “breathe or don’t breathe – it doesn’t matter, you don’t need to do it here, anyway. Just stop obsessing over it,” he adds with a note of disdain, “nothing is happening to you, you’re not _dead_.”

Mallory feels anger rise inside her, anger at this monster who kidnapped her from her home – but she reins it in and tries to follow his advice. Stop thinking. You’re fine. Everything is fine. Oh, the terrible irony of it.

She calms down enough to sit back, no longer trying to spit out her lungs. She wipes her face. The man stands still, his lips curled with displeasure, those cold blue eyes of his dimmed in the half-light of the room. Mallory folds her hands into fists. Inside her, a fire burns, brighter and hotter than she’s ever known, and she focuses it all on the monster in front of her, finally letting it rush out of her with vengeance.

The man doesn’t even lift a finger. Her display of raw power dies out a foot away from him, as if it were nothing more than a dream. His lips lift in a sardonic smile. “So the saying is true, after all,” he says, and Mallory’s heart seems to beat somewhere in the vicinity of her ears, “a witch will try to hex even the Devil in Hell. You lot have no shame, do you?”

She tries again, this time trying to draw on the air, but nothing happens. The man waves his hand as if he were swatting an insect, and sends Mallory flying backwards; she hits the floor with a dull thump, pain lacing her bones.

“None of your tricks will work in my domain, little witch. So if you don’t want to feel my hand again, I advise you not to try my patience.” He nods at her briskly, “now get up, it’s high time we got moving. My subjects are waiting.”

Mallory crawls to her knees, then forces herself to stand on shaking legs. The room narrows into a hallway, and the man’s long strides have already carried him far ahead of her. Grudgingly, she follows.

The hallway is made of doors. Door after door, stretching for what seems like an eternity, all of them identically dark and shiny. “You’re welcome to any of the personal hells, I suppose,” her captor says without turning, his hands clasped behind his back, “there’s more than enough of them to entertain you as long as you’re here.”

“And how long would that be?” she asks, hating the way her voice comes out as a weak whimper.

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably eternity.”

The way exhausts her. The hallway goes on and on, forever, the unending rows of doors taunting her. She hurts all over, and with every step it feels like a weight is pressing down on her, pushing her into the ground. Her bones feel too heavy, the tiled floor swaying in front of her eyes.

“Do keep up,” he calls, “I don’t have time to wait for you, and you won’t find your way out on your own.”

Mallory collapses to the floor. It feels blissfully cool against her burning skin.

“What is wrong with you?” the man growls, standing above her again, his shiny dress shoes level with her eyes.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she says urgently, once again trying to gasp for breath she doesn’t need anymore.

“But you _are_ here, and you will do as you’re fucking told. Get _up_.” He grabs her arm and lifts her forcefully up. Mallory curls her fingers into his sleeve, putting as much pressure into it as she can muster.

“I mean it—I can’t be here, please—”

“Shut up and walk,” he hisses, his face becoming sharp and monstrous and her eyes suddenly brim with tears, “or I’ll leave you here to wither for all eternity.”

She forces herself to move.

She doesn’t know how long it takes until they reach a pair of double doors, grander than any of the others. As the man pushes the doors open, he looks down at her with a poisonous smile she imagines he must have worn at the beginning of time, in the garden of Eden.

“Welcome to your new home.”

 

-

 

Beyond the doors, a city spreads, brimming with life. Or maybe that is a wrong description – as Mallory can feel in her very soul, that she is the only living creature in this place.

It’s magnificent – endlessly tall buildings made out of some glass-looking, shimmering material, going on and on up into the dark ceiling of smoke; residences adorned with gold and silver, shining with jewels in all imaginable colors; and the people – so beautiful and finely dressed, Mallory’s own dress covered in a layer of filth looks glaringly out of place.

Her captor speaks to someone behind her, and she barely notices him anymore, so hypnotized with the view that stretches beyond her.

“Take her to her rooms, she needs her human rest,” he says, and turns on his heel, leaving Mallory in the company of two women, who seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Come with us, Mistress,” they say in unison, voices as sweet and warm as honey.

She lets them lead her wherever they wish; places and buildings blink before her eyes, and she supposes they must have carried her at some point, because the next time she opens her eyes she is in a vast, magnificent chamber, and being ushered into a bed the size of her old room. She curls herself up under the silk covers, her body melting into the soft mattress. She sleeps, and dreams of the sky.

 

-

 

No light filters through the windows. Mallory wakes up to an endless night, dozens of candles casting a golden glow upon her room. Her bedroom is ostentatiously rich, and yet feels terribly cold; a fire rages in the center of it, but never manages to chase away the bone-deep chill.

Her handmaidens help her clean herself up, comb her hair, dress her in dark silk and lace. Her body is covered in bruises and scrapes, and she has no power to heal herself, not anymore. She aches all over, despite her rest, but when she leaves her rooms it is with her back straight, and her chin lifted high; she will be like Miss Cordelia, she will not be seen as anything other than strong.

In the dining hall, her captor awaits her. He sits at the head of a seemingly endless table, caving in under the weight of a variety of dishes, tempting with their beauty and ravishing smells. Mallory’s stomach coils with hunger, and her mouth waters despite her resistance. Extravagantly-dressed people hover by the table – his subjects, presumably – wolfish expressions distorting their handsome faces; never touching anything, never sitting down. Kept at the edges, their muffled voices create an agitated choir.

“Finally,” the Devil says, waving at Mallory to come closer. “How pitiful humans are, wasting so much of their short lives on _sleep_.” The corner of his lips curls in disdain. “Come sit with me, little witch,” he motions to the chair at his right, “unless you’d prefer to sit in my lap.” He gives her a smile that brings to mind all sorts of depraved thoughts – of sweat-slicked bodies pressing against each other, of choked out cries at the edge of completion – but Mallory firmly shuts the door on those; ignoring him, she sits primly by his side, back straight as an arrow; a stark contrast to the lazy way in which he sprawls in his chair as if it were a throne.

He pours them both a glass of wine – a heavy liquid, the color of deep crimson. She takes a sip, hoping it will dull her hunger. It’s dry and incredibly rich – a myriad of hidden tastes exploding like fireworks on her tongue.

He watches her, waiting for her move as she continues to ignore his presence at her side, her gaze slipping from face to face, each more beautiful than the other. How is it possible to find such perfection in the deepest pits of hell? What kind of creatures are they? What secrets are they hiding? She mulls over it in silence, sifting through what she remembers of the scripture and the coven’s grimoires. If they are demons, would her power work on them? If they’re the damned, could she save them? Could they help her save herself?

From the corner of her eye she can see him shifting in his seat, just as the creatures standing by the other side of the table step back, uncovering a square of empty space. Mallory lifts her head. Moments pass, the room seems to buzz in electrifying anticipation; then—a figure appears.

At once, Mallory rises at the sight of Miss Cordelia, her chair tipping back dangerously. The witch’s form is translucent, not quite there, but the relief it brings Mallory seems to overwhelm her senses.

“Mallory, my darling, are you alright?” the witch calls to her; it’s a distant sound, as if coming from underwater.

Mallory wavers, her raw panic at the situation she’s found herself in and her concern for her Supreme’s safety at war with each other.

“I don’t have any more business with you, Cordelia,” the man cuts in before Mallory manages to say a word. “Your debt is paid, so get out of my sight.”

“This is not what we agreed on, Michael,” she says sharply, “it was never supposed to be her.”

“On the contrary,” he drawls out, tracing his finger over the rim of his wineglass. “You promised me the soul of the most powerful witch on Earth.”

“That was supposed to be me!”

“Yes,” he smiles lazily. “But one day you’ll waste away and die and this one,” he nods at Mallory’s trembling form, “will rise and take your place. Or she would have, anyway, because now she’s mine, and when you die, there will be no one to continue your legacy. And _that_ is my prize.”

Cordelia’s eyes shine with tears. “You must let her go, you fool—”

“You should have thought harder before making a deal with the Devil,” he snaps. “There will be no renegotiating. Now be gone.”

“Mallory, I swear I will get you out of here,” Cordelia says in a rush, words tumbling over one another, “just don’t eat anything of this realm—”

“ _Be gone_ ,” Michael roars, and the image vanishes as if it’s never been there.

Tears spill down Mallory’s cheeks. She mourns the woman who has been the closest to a mother she’s ever had.

“I don’t want to see any of her kind here, ever again,” he rages at the courtiers, and they cower in submission. They move back, as if leaving space for his anger, as volatile as a wild beast.

He takes a drink from his glass, the candlelight reflecting off his numerous rings – a mindless show of wealth, of conceit. He has no idea what he’s done, she realizes, noting the way he doesn’t really seem to be troubled; mostly annoyed, if anything.  

“You’re an idiot,” she says, placing her shaking palms flat on the table.

He bares his teeth. “What did you say?”

“I should think your hearing works well enough,” she says, unmoving. She feels a kind of desolation within herself, a numbness curling around her heart, its spidery tendrils traveling all over her body. “You’re an idiot who’s just started a war.”

He laughs, but his eyes stay cold, like two pits of ice. “Don’t think too highly of yourself, sweetheart. Sooner or later another Supreme will rise. They always do.”

“But I was never going to be a Supreme.”

The room grows quiet. It feels like a graveyard, when not even a breath stirs the air.

“You’re lying,” he says, “I saw your power; I know what you can do.”

“Maybe. But I’m no witch.”

He freezes. Those unnerving eyes pin her in her seat, as if he wants to tear into her and spill her insides out, uncovering what she’s hiding. “What are you then?”

She forces her lips into a sweet smile that feels like a lie, and seems alien in this place, so deep below the ground. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

 


	2. two for mirth

 

 

> _What does it mean to be pinned in place like a butterfly, like an iridescent beetle? Does it scar you? Does it tear at your throat? Can you move, when you are pierced in such a way? When all else is taken from you, what is your instinct - to run, or brawl, or stick fast in your place and stare at the oncoming thing of unstoppable force?_
> 
> Mabel, Episode 32: Temporal Snake by Becca De La Rosa and Mabel Martin

 

 

**-**

 

**ii. two for mirth.**

-

 

He forces her to sit by his side as he accepts petitioners. He sits on a throne of bones, a wretched sight that makes her skin crawl; him in all his fallen-angel glory, velvet-clad and smiling, always smiling, his beringed fingers splayed on armrests made of skulls while the massive hall fills with agonized souls; endless rows of the dead, hoping for a miracle of absolution.

She braves through the interviews, one more horrifying than the other. Michael takes his time. He makes a show of pondering every case, of considering every angle of their stories. And right when it seems that they may be forgiven, he sinks in the knife.

“And what did you feel when you killed your husband?” he asks silkily, red-rimmed eyes full of artful compassion as he gazes down at the weeping ghost of a woman.

Mallory holds her breath, praying to – for once – hear the right answer. The woman cries harder, presses her hands to her mouth, but the words still come out. “I felt happy. Relieved.”

The terrible words echo in the throne room, and Mallory closes her eyes. It’s torture, listening to these people condemn themselves to endless suffering, all to Michael’s amusement. “He deserved it,” the woman continues, a freefall towards damnation, “he should have thought twice before cheating on me, that fucking asshole—”

Michael smiles, like a father would, and shakes his head. “I completely understand, Susan. But unfortunately for you, the guy upstairs doesn’t take too kindly to murderers.” He leans forward. “To him, you are trash. And my job is to dispose of you.”

He waves his hand and the ground swallows her whole, as if she’s never been there.

“Why do you do this?” Mallory asks, digging her nails into the skin of her forearm.

Michael’s eyes widen theatrically. “Why, as I said, it’s my job, sweetheart.”

Since that dinner revelation, his attitude towards her has changed drastically. While before, he treated her like a nasty inconvenience, now she is a delightful riddle – delightful in a sense that nothing seems to bring him more pleasure than prodding and stinging her, waiting for a reaction. He shows her the horrors of the Underworld, pushes her to the very edges of sanity, and then leans forward in amazed curiosity – watching for cracks; hoping she breaks.

She’s tried ignoring him, but that only made him more vicious. Like a frustrated child he would lash out, delivering more senseless suffering upon his subjects. He could be cruel, just for the sake of proving a point.

So she humors him, now. Lets him toy with her, allowing him to think he has the upper hand, while she learns him slowly; his mood swings, his moments of weakness. Sometimes she glimpses the flashes of who she believes truly hides beneath these terrible deeds – flashes of a lonely boy, stuck in his own kind of hell, for all eternity.

(Sometimes it’s a success.)

“Why do you do this, if you never grant their wishes?” she asks, and there he is again, with those calculating eyes, their intensity holding a promise of one day devouring her whole.

“I do—sometimes.”

“How often then?”

He pretends to think it through. “Maybe once in a million? I must, otherwise the whole point is null. You see – they must have hope. It’s the key to this whole thing – they hope, and that makes the denial all the more devastating.” He smiles. Those terrible eyes of his seem to burn with the words.

She feels blood under her fingertips. Somehow, the pain helps anchor her in place.

“You trick them,” she whispers, “you never give them a fighting chance.”

“You will eventually find, little sparrow, that humans are inherently evil inside. Almost every single one of them has darkness in them that tars their souls. My talent lies in dragging it out into the light.”

“You lie.” She shakes her head mournfully. “You always lie. At this point you don’t even know how to stop.”

He grinds his teeth. “Give me your hand,” he commands, reaching out to her, palm outstretched. Mallory hesitates, regarding the offered hand like she would a rabid animal.

“I want to share my power with you,” he says with annoyance, and then wraps his hand tightly around hers. His gaze focuses on the fresh blood underneath her fingernails, the red marks on her forearm. He clicks his tongue. “There now, let’s not do that again,” he brushes the tip of his index finger across the cuts she’s made, and then brings it to his lips, “I don’t like seeing my property damaged.” His tongue flicks over the tip of his finger, licking her blood off his skin. Even though she doesn’t need to anymore, Mallory finds herself gasping for air, blood pounding in her ears. His hand feels ice cold around her own burning flesh.

As if nothing happened, he waves at the next person in line. “Now,” he tells Mallory, his grip tight and unforgiving, “focus on him. You should be able to see into his mind.”

She makes herself look at the man in front of them. He’s old, with white whiskers and a kind face. He leans on a cane, heavily favoring his left side, and Mallory’s heart once more clenches with sadness. “Look inside,” Michael whispers so close to her ear, goosebumps rise on her skin.  

Through their linked hands she can feel the thread of his power and reaches for it tentatively; it doesn’t really fit, feels more like an oversized glove, right and wrong at the same time, the sensation uncomfortable yet bearable. Somehow, with every second it gets easier to hold.

She digs into the man’s memories – his name is Noah, he was 89 when he died – he had 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren; he liked to fish and sail; in his mind she sees him relaxing on a boat, and cooking fish for his family, and hitting his grandson with an oar – Mallory draws back as if singed, a horrified gasp stuck in her throat. But Michael’s hand squeezes tighter around her own, and he forces her deeper, coaxing the darkest memories to surface. “See,” he whispers, and she shivers all over, at the blood in the basement, at the cries abruptly dying down.

She rips her hand away from him and stands up, shaking so horribly her teeth chatter. She can barely see through her tears, but for once there is no smile on Michael’s face. She turns her back on them and runs, but the images are burnt into her mind and no distance lessens her terror.

“Now look what you’ve done to your Mistress,” she hears Michael’s enraged voice behind her. The ground breaks down with a deafening crack, but she doesn’t look back.

(Sometimes it’s a failure.)

 

-

 

She doesn’t eat.

Michael scoffs at her, his irritation growing with each meal during which she refuses his food. He explains, time and again, that the food they offer her is stolen from the world above – that’s why it’s not as sophisticated as the other dishes at the table, true, and that’s why they need fixed meal hours, because the food cannot stay too long for fear of going bad—but it will not hurt her— _why_ the fuck would he want to poison her anyway, if his greatest pleasure these days is seeing her _squirm_ in his company—

—but she doesn’t believe him. Her hunger becomes a gaping void, becomes a dull ache, becomes a constant, pulsing pain, but she will survive this, because that’s what Miss Cordelia asked her to do—and Miss Cordelia will get her out, and she will feel the sun again. Will smell the sweet scent of roses. Feel the wind tangle her hair. And God will find her.

One does not live on bread alone. _She will not die._

Michael’s anger swells, a shroud choking the Underworld. She hates him like this, and does everything in her power to avoid him; sleeping for days and skipping dinners and forgetting to show up for petitions. His servants always find her, begging to see their Master; but somehow, they listen to her, too. She turns them around and they obey, perfect faces sometimes cracking at the edges. More and more often, Mallory wonders if every second of her captivity hasn’t really been a hallucination.

She wanders the endless hallway behind the double doors of the Underworld. She hovers with her hand above door handles, daring herself to enter, and talking herself out of it every time. What if everyone is really so deeply depraved? What if Michael is right? The seed he planted grows in her heart, rises stronger and stronger, even as her whole being rebels against it – she’s always believed there’s good in people, in some maybe better hidden than in others but—why should she give up now? It was human to doubt. It was human to waver. But love—love and faith would always prevail.

So she opens the door.

She finds herself in a teenage hell – a skinny red-headed cheerleader forever standing in the middle of a classroom; the other kids form a circle around her, yelling insults, throwing things. She bullied them, all of them, to the point when the two girls – the ones with the bleeding wrists – took their own lives. After the insults, the scissors start. First into her eyes, then her chest, her legs, her hands, until she chokes on blood, for eight excruciating minutes just thrashing on the floor, and dies. Then it starts again.

She was 15.

Mallory watches from the doorway, tries to make sense of it. How long has this been going? When is it going to stop? Will it ever?

_Did He forget?_

She steps in, hand outstretched. “Stop,” she calls, putting all of her confidence, all of her might into the word. The demon children turn and their terrible, empty eyes focus on her. They stand still, holding the scissors clasped in their hands.

The girl runs to Mallory and grabs her arm, her face tearstained and pink. “Are you here to get me out?” she asks, and Mallory nods, pushing the girl behind her, ushering her to the door. She keeps her eyes focused on the demons, holding them in place. With her free hand she grabs for the handle and yanks the door open.

It opens to a wall.

The girl wails, clawing at the bricks until her nails splinter and red lines bloom on the wall where her fingers have been. Mallory grabs her wrists in a tight hold, keeping her in place. “It’s gonna be okay,” she says; a lie, a terrible lie, “we’ll figure something out.”

“No, no, no—” the girl sobs and falls to the floor. Mallory sinks down next to her and wraps her arms around her shaking form tightly. “It never ends—they always want more and I can’t, I can’t—”

“Hush,” she whispers, combing her cinnamon hair away from her face. The girl cries into her neck wretchedly. Mallory feels her heart splitting open in her chest.

“I want my mom,” the girl weeps, “I want my mom.”

Mallory rocks her gently, making soothing noises, her face buried in the girl’s hair.

“Her mother is above. She will never see her again.”

She lifts her head up to see Michael standing in the room, his face devoid of expression. At the sight of him, the girl in her arms quivers in fright, pressing herself violently into the wall. Mallory rises, putting herself between Michael and the girl, her eyes burning.

“What have you done, Mallory?” he asks flatly.

“You are the Master of this realm, are you not?” Her voice is hard, challenging. “You can make this stop.”

He looks different in this light. Exposed. Real. Less like a monster out of her nightmares and more like a man of flesh and blood.

“I can. But there is no reason for me to do that.”

“Michael, please.” His name feels foreign on her lips. A shadow passes through his face, and she can see a muscle jump in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. “She’s suffered enough, she’s just a child. Set her free.”

He looks over her shoulder at the creature quivering on the floor, then the mute demons frozen in place. Finally his eyes rest on her, blue fire stripping her soul bare.

“I can give you an hour, but no more. After that, you must leave and never come back.”

With that, he’s gone.

Mallory’s knees give out beneath her, and the girl curls her skinny arms around her waist. They collapse against the wall, foreheads touching. “What’s your name?” Mallory whispers, smoothing her tangled hair once more.

It takes a moment for the girl to remember. “Rose. My name is Rose.” She grasps Mallory’s hand tightly, desperately, “please, remember me.”

“I will,” Mallory promises, and presses a kiss to her forehead, “and I will pray for you.”

 

-

 

She takes a sip of the wine. It stains her lips and teeth blood-red, burns her tongue with taste she’s been depriving herself of for so long. Acid rises in her throat, her stomach clenches – a bad idea, terribly bad – but she only drinks more, until the nausea ceases to matter.

The demons hover about her like sheep, an overwhelming crowd – too many and too close for comfort but Mallory finds that she doesn’t mind. Sitting in Michael’s high chair at the head of the table surrounded by his subjects she finally feels an ounce of control. None of them dare touch her. They just watch her with those hungry, amazed expressions on their beautiful faces, still as statues. She leans her head back, the alcohol hitting her hard and fast; her starved body offers no resistance. The world spins.

“Mistress,” her handmaidens trill by her side, “you must eat. The Master ordered it.”

Mallory gazes at the contents of the table with half-lidded eyes. All those artful dishes on crystal plates, each more tempting than the other. “Did he tell you to force-feed me too?”

They shake their heads. Between one blink of her eye and the next Mallory sees that halves of their faces are mangled, with twisted eyes drooping down to where their cheekbones should be. The two girls are identical – part beauty, part nightmare, mirroring each other’s flaws and strengths like a looking glass. Mallory blinks again, but the horrifying image remains. “Then I guess he’s out of luck today,” she mumbles, pushing the plate away from herself.

The beautiful crowd swims in front of her eyes. As seconds pass, the colorful satin dresses and tailored suits turn to scales and scars. Smiles twist, revealing rows of curling teeth, some long and sharp as needles, dripping ichor. Meticulous hairstyles morph into horns.

They never move from their spots. The hopeful expressions are still stuck on their faces, made even more obscene by their disfigurements and mutations.

Her sickness rises with a vengeance and Mallory throws herself over the armrest and vomits. She shakes violently, the taste of acid and wine biting her throat, and she reaches for more wine to wash it off.

The room spins as she lowers herself to the floor, the monsters stepping back to allow her passage. She walks through the palace, with its marble floors and gold pillars and dark, all-encompassing cold, until she steps inside the throne room, a flock of demons at her back.

Mallory regards the souls of the dead, material yet not, lined up across the endless hall, waiting for mercy that will never come. It makes her want to cry – but more than that, it makes her want to scream and rage and fight the injustice of it all.    

She steps towards them and grabs the arm of a ghost-like woman closest to her, tries to drag her away from the line. “You’re wasting your time,” she tells her, but finds she doesn’t have nearly enough strength to outmatch the woman, who’s desperately trying to fall back in line, emitting soft, pitiful mewls like those of an animal caught in a snare.

“All of you are wasting your time!” She tries her luck with someone else, but to no avail. The souls lean away from her, frightened (of his wrath? Or of _her_?). “He’s a monster,” she calls out, swaying, drops of wine sloshing over the rim of her glass, “he’s evil and selfish and he hates you almost as much as he hates himself.” The words spill from her lips in an unstoppable current, and she can’t stop, for the love of God why can’t she _stop_? “He will never help you—will torture you forever until you don’t even remember your names—until there’s nothing left—” the glass slips from her fingers, wine forming a puddle of blood on the white floor, red, red, dead, “—but pain.”

The blood spills like an ocean before her and Mallory falls.

She falls and yet she doesn’t hit the floor; Michael is here, his arms around her, holding her up. Through her haze she can glimpse the rage on his face, so awful, so terrible and final. She finds she’s not afraid.

He lifts her up gently, one arm under her knees while the other cradles her back. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, his cold skin blissful against her own feverish one. All sound dulls, except for her own racing heart, and she’s so cold, yet burning up at the same time. She tangles one of her hands into his necktie, anchoring herself as another wave of sickness rises in her throat. Michael says something into her hair, but she doesn’t understand, doesn’t want to understand anymore, and as he steps into the darkness – a mockery of a groom carrying his bride over the threshold – she lets go.


	3. three for a funeral

 

 

 

> _Here it is then, the dark thing,_
> 
> _the dark thing you have waited for so long._
> 
> Margaret Atwood, “Waiting”, from Morning in the Burned House: Poems

 

 

**-**

 

**iii. three for a funeral.**

-

 

Once, Michael saw a little bird soaring through the sky. It was beautiful and it praised life with its song. But Michael despised beautiful things almost as much as he despised life – so he stole the little bird from the sky. He clipped the little bird’s wings and locked it in a cage. He waited for the little bird’s song to end.

He turned off the light. He rattled the bars of the cage, frightening the little bird until it would not fly anymore. He tore its feathers out, one by one.

And then, one day, the song died.

He should have known.

 

-

 

He should have known, and yet he stayed away – thinking he was being courteous, obliging, that he was respecting her wishes by leaving her on her own; he could feel her fiery mark across his kingdom, felt every step she took in the darkness but he never – almost never – followed her trail.

Just once.  

When he felt her step inside Rose Sutton’s hell, he felt _afraid_. It was a foreign, cold feeling that didn’t sit well with him, and held no explanation. He battled with his thoughts – did he fear that she would hate him more when she saw the punishments with her own eyes? That was absurd – she couldn’t possibly hate him more, and then – what did he care? She was nothing to him.

Was he afraid that she would interfere with the punishment? That wasn’t possible, the demons would only change their course, work around her – treat her like nothing, inconsequential as she was. Would they, though? Or would they see her as an accomplice of their victim, and attack her, too? Would they stab her – they’re all so much stronger than her, hell-born and hell-raised – and she would have no way of defending herself, having none of her powers in his realm—

So, gritting his teeth to the point of breaking, he followed after her. He did not expect what he found there.

He did not expect the extent of her compassion, for one. Seeing her with the petitioners was one thing, but this soul was already damned – cursed to endure punishment for all eternity, and he never spared their kind another thought, they never deserved it. Yet there she was, his infuriating not-witch, his little ensnared bird – there she was with her arms around the damned girl, consoling her as if she were worthy of it.

He did not expect to see the demons stuck motionless, as if he’d ordered them himself.

And he certainly did not expect her to stand before him, barring his way to one of his subjects, defying him in such an open, insulting way. Yet the slight barely registered, he was too focused on observing the way she’d changed – his eyes taking in her feverish eyes, her hollowed cheeks, the sullen white of her skin. Wan, weak, and trembling, and still she was fighting for the damned, fighting _him_ , her eyes alight with a fire he knew all too well.

And then she called him by his name—and begged him. Somehow, that was worse than defiance, worse than the gravest insult she could have done him. Because it meant she thought there was a part of him that could be humanized – that he wasn’t just the Dread Lord, the Devil, the king of the Underworld. That he was, somehow, also a man – one that could feel compassion, and be reasoned with and swayed by his emotions, and able to make mistakes, because he still had his free will.

All of it was worse, because it wasn’t true. Never true.

There was nothing human about him. So he left her.

 

-

 

He left her and now she is dying.

He can feel it – in the shallow, rapid beat of her heart against his chest as he carries her through the palace. He can feel it in the way she weighs no more than a dozen feathers when he lays her in his bed.

He calls for food, his anger nearly blinding him, like a crimson cloud obscuring the horizon. He needs to let it out or else he will go mad.

The Mazikeen approach with a platter, nearly bent in half; they look at him with a mixture of fear and worry on their mismatched faces, as if it weren’t in part their fault, too. “I’m going to tear them apart, limb from limb, dig those ugly eyes out of their skulls—” he mutters, tearing a small piece out of a slice of bread.

“Please don’t,” Mallory whispers through chapped, red-stained lips.

Michael leans closer. “What was that?”

“It’s not their fault.”

He brings the piece of bread to her lips. “How is it not? I ordered them to take care of you. I ordered them to make you eat. They disobeyed.”

She turns her head away from him, and he finds it hard to restrain himself from lashing out. “I asked them to,” she says softly. He sneers.

“And you think that was of any consequence?” He looks to the ceiling, trying to rein in his annoyance. At last, he taps her gently on the chin. “Please, eat. I swear this is from the world above.” She looks doubtful still, lips held so tight together they’re trembling. “Do you really think we bake bread in hell?”

She rolls her eyes, a corner of her mouth twitching. He disgusts himself, the king of the Underworld, kneeling by the bedside of a human, begging her to eat from his hand. “If I wanted you dead, I would have left you lying there on the floor, you stubborn creature,” he bites out. She regards him for a moment, mulling over the argument, which sounds the most reasonable of all, and yet holds little truth. If she thinks death would be the result of eating his food, so be it. There is no need for him to prove her wrong.

At last, he watches her open her mouth and swallow, like a frail little bird. She fights to keep it down, beads of sweat gathering on her forehead. Tentatively, Michael presses his hand to her skin, to wipe the sweat off, but it catches him off-guard how terribly hot she feels to the touch. It’s as if there’s a fire raging inside her, beneath her skin; he fears his hand will blister from the heat. Is it normal for the living to feel this way? Or is this a fever that wastes her away?

She leans into his hand then, eyes fluttering closed with a sigh of contentment. “That’s nice,” she mutters. He trails his cold hand across her forehead again, then cups her cheek experimentally. His hand seems so big on her, it would take no effort at all to crush her, grind her bones into dust. The thought deserts his brain when she turns her face slightly and leans more into his hand, a dizzying moan of relief escaping her lips; the sound pierces him through and goes straight to his groin. Would she make this noise when he touched her elsewhere, too? If he pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, or to her chest, rising and falling so stubbornly, clinging to her old life above the ground?

He reins these thoughts in, and leans back. Mallory opens her eyes with a frustrated whine that, too, excites him for some reason. “Food first,” he says, and allows himself a sardonic smile, “hand later.”

She huffs but lets him feed her, small pieces of bread that nearly dissolve on her tongue. When she can’t take any more, he shrugs off his jacket and rolls up his sleeve, exposing more skin; once more he presses his hand to her feverish face, feeling a peculiar thrill at the way she needily presses into him.

When she finally falls into restless sleep, he orders the Mazikeen to wipe her skin with cold towels. He takes longer to leave, way longer than he should.

 

-

 

Maybe she is right. Or maybe she is wrong—but he’s been following his rules for so long, he’s forgotten what really matters at the heart of it. That he is not only the executioner; he is also the judge.

So he steps into Rose Sutton’s hell and makes himself remember.

The damned falls to her knees, hands clasped in prayer.

_No one prays to him._

“You are forgiven,” he says, at last making his choice, and the demons disintegrate. Rose’s eyes shine as he holds out his hand to help her rise. “Be free.”

 

-

 

He keeps her fed, watered, clothed, and – by his own standards, at least – entertained (after all, she keeps him company as he passes judgements, and what is more _fun_ than watching souls be damned to endless suffering?). Yet still, the hollows under her eyes deepen. His wandering gaze doesn’t miss the way her cheekbones keep sharpening, or how prominently her collarbones jut out now. Fear returns, unbidden, gnawing at his insides like a vulture. What is he doing wrong?

He watches as she eats, boiled vegetables cut into tiny bite-sized pieces and pale gray fish, all of which look appallingly tasteless to him. The Mazikeen serve her, their glamours lifted, all of their terrible glory out in the open, but Mallory seems to take no notice. She thanks them politely each time, gifting them with a sweet smile that seems to illuminate her whole face, making her hazel eyes briefly light up again. These are the moments when Michael feels a sharp, vicious singe of jealousy, followed immediately by rage – at her, at himself, but mostly at his idiot subjects, clinging to her dimming light like lovesick fools. Debasing themselves. Over a _human_. Disgusting.

“You look terrible.” He tries to say it nonchalantly, as his eyes follow the movement of her pale, slender throat as she swallows. She wears one of the most modest of the dresses he’s provided her, with a high neckline that in some inexplicable way makes the small patch of skin that’s visible all the more aggravating. “I’ve had humans here before, you know. Live ones, too. And none of them reacted to the stay as badly as you do.”

She presses a napkin to her pretty pink lips. “Maybe your manners were better with them.”

“No,” he drawls out, “they were worse. _Much_ worse. But they didn’t mind, since they all wanted something from me.”

“Like Miss Cordelia,” she says, long lashes casting shadows upon her cheeks, “but she wasn’t really here, was she?”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“And yet you made a deal.” She leans forward, her sweet flowery scent filling his nostrils, momentarily clouding his mind. “What did she ask you for?”

He catches himself and draws back, presenting her with a sharp smile. “That’s not my secret to share.”

“I deserve to know – I’m stuck here because of the deal she’d made—”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he shrugs, reaching for his wine, “client confidentiality. Now, back to the subject of you looking like a half-rotten corpse,” he adds, soaking extra malice into his words once he catches himself, again, following the slope of her neck with his eyes. That fragment of nearly translucent skin that seems to be begging for his lips and tongue. “Do you have an idea, perhaps, of what would make you better? I am a good host, after all. I’m nothing if not willing to help.”

Mallory blinks and shadows dance across her face. “Let me go, then.”

He can’t help but snort. “Be serious, please. Anything reasonable, except that.” He pauses and his lips curl. “And, I suppose, nothing along the lines of _my death_ , either.”

“I would never ask for that,” she says pointedly.

Michael narrows his eyes. “Would never _ask_ or would never _wish for_?”

She does not grace him with an answer.

Amusement bubbles in his chest, sudden and delightful. “Ah, pity,” he says with a long-suffering sigh, “I was hoping my pure little bird would say both.”

She takes a slow sip of water, avoiding wine now, for which he’s grateful. “I have a theory about that, actually,” she says after a moment. His attention sharpens. “I think my… indisposition might have something to do with you taking my powers away.”

“How so?”

She opens and closes her mouth, searching for words. “I told you I’m different. My power—it’s truly a part of me. Taking it away is like removing a lung. Or a heart.” Her lips curve into a sad smile. “I think—no, I _know_ that I cannot go on without it.”

It makes no sense, he thinks as fear’s sharp claws tug at him again. He has seen countless witches and warlocks in his time. Despite everything, magic was never intrinsic. A witch’s power was more like a skill, that helped utilize the magic that has always existed around them, dormant, waiting. What Mallory’s words suggest… it shouldn’t work like that. It never worked like that.

“What kind of power does that?”

She raises her eyebrows incredulously. “Do you really expect me to give up the only piece of information that gives me an advantage over you?”

“If you told me, I would be better equipped to fucking help,” he snaps.

“I highly doubt that,” she says, her voice level and eyes set. “What I was trying to say is, if you want to help me, you could just give me my power back. I’d be as good as new. And you’d be a happy, accomplished host.”

She has that hopeful look about her, one she tries desperately to hide. But Michael’s eyes never seem to miss anything about her these days. “I must disappoint you then,” he says finally. “It’s impossible for you to get it back.”

“Why?”

“Because it was never taken away from you in the first place.” He taps his fingers against the table in impatience, as bewilderment flashes across her face. “It simply—does not work here, in this realm.”

She shakes her head. “You’re lying. I don’t know why I thought this time would be different, you’re _always_ lying—”

“You’re a smart girl, Mallory, so think,” he hisses. “In this realm there is place only for my power. How do you think I would be able to fulfill my role, if any half-powerful creature would attempt to challenge me?”

Hope seeps away from her face, leaving her hollow. Her lips tremble. “But your demons—you can’t deny their power, it practically is the basis of their existence—”

“Yes,” he says, “but that’s because I breathed my own power into them. Each one of them wields only a minuscule part of what I am capable of. A part that I granted them.”

Mallory leans her head back, resigned. A terrible idea comes to him then, an unspeakable one, but yet nothing else seems to be making any more sense than this. It would be risky, and dangerous. Unnatural. It would mean breaking the rules he’s upheld since the beginning of his reign. And still, she might not survive it.

“I could probably do the same to you,” he says, and waits for her cry of outrage, a look of disgust.

But nothing of the sort comes.

She just looks at him with those wide, soulful eyes that seem to hold universes in their depths; dim with exhaustion she reminds him of a burnt out candle a barest touch of wind could put out. “Then do it,” she says. Her voice doesn’t shake.

His fingers curl into fists. He says slowly, “you might die.”

“If you won’t,” she asks flatly, “I’ll die anyway.”

 

-

 

She prays.

Hands clasped together and head bowed reverently, she kneels on the cold hard floor of her room, and _prays_.

(He wishes he turned back.)

“Father,” her soft voice carries, and Michael’s hair stands on end, “show me the way. For I am lost, and I do not know what to do.”

“He can’t hear you,” he tells her, and he is proud there is no disappointment in his voice, no bitterness, just the plain, cruel truth.

She doesn’t believe him.

“He always listens,” she replies, lifting her face to look at him. “He would listen to you too, if only you tried.”

She sounds so sure of it he can’t help but laugh. It’s an ugly bark of a sound, and it makes her shiver visibly, a tremor that shakes her whole body.

“He is the lord of heaven and earth, little sparrow, not of hell. He won’t hear you because he never bothered himself with this place – never wanted to.”

He watches as she slumps to the floor, back pressed against the bedpost, bare feet folding under her dress. Her fingers play with the hem, tugging at a loose thread. “This is what you choose to believe. Not the truth.”

“This is what I _know_ ,” he bites out, lowering himself to her level, to look into her eyes. “Why do you think he cast me down? He never had any desire to deal with the damned, so he left it all to me. Only _I_ can hear you here. And you are never going back.”

She blinks, startled. “Cast you down?”

“Do you hear me, Mallory? You are never going back, so make your peace with it. I’m tired of your sniveling.”

How rich of him to say that – the Master of Hell, wishing for his subject’s suffering to end. But she wasn’t really his subject. Not yet.

“No living thing can stay in the Underworld,” she intones, hazel eyes gazing at him with determined sureness.

“The jury is still out on that.”

He watches her clench her small hands into fists, then relax them again in her lap. She leans her head back against the bedpost. “It’s alright,” she says, and Michael, not for the first time, has a feeling that he’s missing a crucial part of the picture. “It should be enough for me to know that you’ve lost.”

“How could I lose?” he hisses, so close now he can count all the lashes fanning her pale cheeks.

She smiles serenely. “When I’m dead, the next Supreme will come to her powers. It’s the way it is. So you see, by keeping me here like this, you are actually _helping_ Miss Cordelia, allowing her to find her successor that much quicker. Isn’t the irony simply delicious, Michael?”

His anger rises, dark and suffocating. It pounds in his ears. “You said you weren’t a witch.”

Mallory laughs, “and you believed me?”

Her laugh abruptly transforms into a harsh cough. He watches as she presses her fingers to her mouth.

“Congratulations, Serpent,” she says with her fingers red and lips shining with blood, “you lose.”

 

-

 

He is calm now, high on his throne of bones in the great hall. His little bird sits at his right side again; a small frown mars her face, but there are no more snide remarks directed at him, no crowing of his failure. He holds her hand in his the entire time – so small and warm and alive, her rapid pulse beating a staccato against his skin – and he lets her see into every soul, observe every judgement he passes. And he’s trying to be amicable, too – no playing with his food anymore, no scaring his lovely guest. It amuses him to watch as the dead slowly begin looking to Mallory, sometimes even directing their pleas at her, exclusively. The preposterous thought that she would have any sway over him whatsoever is hysterical; he’s enjoying it all way too much.

He sends yet another one away, and he can feel as her hand tenses beneath his. Her lips twitch but she refuses to say a word.

“You don’t agree with me, do you,” he drawls out, running his thumb in endless circles against the soft skin of her hand.

Mallory shrugs. “You don’t care if I agree with you or not.”

“It has little significance, that’s true. Still, your idealist approach entertains me.” He turns to her, lips curling upwards. “So amuse me—what would you do for me to release little Rose Sutton?”

She sits up straighter and rips her hand away from him; in that moment it feels as if he’s been shocked, the loss of her warm touch causing almost physical pain. “Anything,” she says.

“Would you give a piece of your soul for me to wear here?” He taps the red ring on his index finger, the light shining off the empty jewel. “Would you give a pound of flesh to feed the dead?”

There is no hesitation on her face. No shadow of doubt. _Curious_.

“If it means her salvation, then yes.”

“How heroic of you.” He smiles again, and this time it’s all teeth. “But I’ll be generous today. All I’m going to ask of you is—a kiss.”

Her face blanches, hands flexing in her lap. “Suddenly having second thoughts?” he asks.

“How do I know you’ll honor the deal?”

“Oh, you don’t, of course,” he says, and watches in delight how her eyes narrow, “but I can swear on His name, if that makes you feel better.”

She considers his words, turning the rings on her fingers absently.

Finally, she stands.

“Alright.”

“Good,” he says. He has to dip his head back to look at her now, the way she’s standing above him – all righteous anger and determination – and he lays his hands on the armrests of his throne, pressing his fingers down hard enough to break the bones beneath them, set on keeping still.

Mallory hovers above him. She turns her head to look at the dead. “You want to do this here?”

“They won’t mind. And either way, for most of them it will be the most action they’ll see in… well, eternity. You’ll be doing them a favor.”

His patience frays at the edges. She wavers, clasps and unclasps her hands in front of her.

Then, abruptly, she moves forward.

The press of her lips against his lasts less than the blink of an eye; she draws back immediately, as if scalded. She is a flash of hair and dark fabric and sweet perfume, and Michael would probably doubt any of it even happened – if it weren’t for the hot taste of her on his lips that seems to be sinking into his flesh.

“Really, Mallory,” he says, his voice lower and darker than before, “is little Rose’s life worth so little to you?”

She shifts on her feet, her feverish eyes not daring to meet his own. “Do it like you mean it,” he says, digging his fingers into the bones, feeling them crack.

She bristles, her mouth set in a hard thin line. He expects her to run.

 “You can imagine that, can’t you?” he taunts. “That I’m a plaid-wearing, good catholic boy who held your hand at church once—”

His words die in his throat when she crashes her mouth to his, the burn of her sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted. She cups his face in her hands, bringing him closer, mouth opening over his, wet and warm and furious. Her fingers move to tangle in his hair as she sucks on his bottom lip, and he thinks this must be penance for all the wretched things he’s done, to sit back and bear it while she’s so close, and burning, and alive.

He feels the soft sting of her nails against his scalp. She tugs at his hair, angling his head back and he obeys, opening his mouth for her. Her tongue swipes over his lips.

He tears his hands away from the armrests and presses them over the curve of her hips, pulling her into his lap, until her body is pressed flush to his. She doesn’t stop him, not even when his palms move to the small of her back, keeping her in place – gently, so gently, he can’t let himself lose control. She tugs at his bottom lip with her teeth, softly, not nearly hard enough to draw blood, forcing a growl from deep within his chest. She burns everywhere they touch, flames licking his skin and torching his insides; he wishes to devour her sweetness, her light, strip her of her softness and purity, leaving only the bite of her nails, the glimmer of her eyes. She rocks against him then, a soft keening sound escaping her lips as she grinds against his hardness, and it’s too fucking much and not nearly enough, even for him.

Through his daze he makes himself remember the purpose of it all; he reaches for the darkness of his power that coils inside him, making him who he is. He doesn’t take much –  can’t risk it, not yet – and breathes it inside Mallory’s hungry, open mouth. The power leaves him without resistance, as if it wants her to possess it, wants to possess _her_.

Mallory draws back with a gasp. Her lips are red, swollen. There’s a pink flush spreading across her cheeks, making her look like a ripe fruit, ready for him to sink his teeth into. Her eyes shine darkly, brilliantly, and so _alive,_ as she looks down on him.

“Satisfied?” she asks hoarsely, and she shifts in his lap, making him hiss.

“Not even close,” he says, licking his lips. His want claws at his insides, wild and ravenous and focused solely on her. “But for now it will suffice.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear that from this point onward the one and only purpose of this fic will be to make Mallory feel as good as possible. 
> 
> Also, I would like to thank you all for your lovely comments! I treasure every single one of them, they really are the greatest motivator to finish this monster of a fic. You're the best. ❤


	4. four for birth

 

> I am your opus,  
>  I am your valuable,  
>  The pure gold baby
> 
> That melts to a shriek.  
>  I turn and burn.  
>  Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
> 
> — Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

 

 

**-**

 

**iv. four for birth.**

-

 

His power feels familiar.

Of course, there are undeniable differences between her own power and his – the taste of it, the facture, the way it’s so much harder to tame, harder to grasp – but at the gist of it, the way it seems to be all that fills her lungs, all that runs through her veins, and all that makes every cell in her body – in this way, what he gave her feels like her own.

She feels strong again, alive. She is once more capable of telekinesis – although a weak imitation of what she could do before; only being able to move small objects across short distances, nothing that needs much strength or concentration.

In the sanctity of her rooms, she tests herself.

Mallory plucks out the petals of the fake flowers that stand by her bedside, then assembles them back together. Attempts to collect the drops of water that spilled from a glass. Wills the flames in the fireplace into shapes she pictures in her mind.

It’s tough work, teaching herself magic all over again. The differences are nuanced and she ends up slipping many times – glass shattering, fire licking her hands. But even those accidents prove fruitful – she discovers that, once more, she can heal herself.

It strengthens her, that velvety darkness swirling beneath her skin, feeding her heart.

But it’s not enough.

She needs more.                                   

 

-

 

She runs after the dog, through the marble hallways and secret passages she hasn’t seen before, joyous laughter bubbling in her throat. The Mazikeen follow them at a distance, along with a few smaller demons that seem to be having a hard time catching up. She runs, her skirt tangling between her legs, and she can almost feel the wind in her hair, blowing softly against her skin. If she closes her eyes she can see the sun and the clouds in the sky, and the sweet-smelling flowers. Can hear the rustling of leaves in the trees; the voices of her sisters.

“Slow down!” she calls out, letting a wisp of her power skim the dog’s back. The hound’s ears twitch and he turns around, then starts bounding back in their direction. The demons screech behind her.

The hound stops right before Mallory. His body easily comes to her chest, his huge deformed head somehow monstrous and amicable at the same time. His mouth gapes open and a jeweled walking stick slips from between his teeth. Mallory catches it, running her free hand through the hound’s dark fur, scratching behind his ear gently. “Aren’t you a good boy,” she says fondly. The hound’s massive tongue licks her hand.

She throws the stick again, as far as she can, and the hound races after it, a few smaller demons at his back. The dog catches it first and spins around, in a hurry to show her his trophy.

“Are you really playing fetch with my hellhound?” At the sound of Michael’s voice, Mallory’s laughter dies in her throat, but she can’t wipe the smile off her face, especially at the offended look he gives her. He struts towards them, clad in burgundy velvet and black silk, and she determinedly ignores the way her heart suddenly picks up speed at his proximity. The demons back away from him, as if trying to melt into the walls, while mere minutes ago they were fighting over who gets to be closest to her. Michael leans over the hound. “Is that –?” He furrows his brow, “ _that’s_ mine.”

The hound spits out the walking stick, slick with his saliva. “You’re very welcome to take it back,” Mallory says, her lips trembling with barely suppressed laughter. 

Michael’s mouth twists. Then he smooths his features again. “Come with me,” he says instead, extending his hand to her, “I want to show you something.”

He finds reasons to touch her. It doesn’t escape her notice how often he seeks her out and comes up with excuses to be close to her, as if he were starved for her touch, for her voice, for her warmth. It has been a usual occurrence with his demons – they are drawn to her life like moths to a flame, but she never expected their master would share that same compulsion. Or maybe it is something else entirely.

He leads her outside the palace, to a place that – a million miles above them – could have been a garden. It is beautifully arranged, with finely-shaped hedges and sandy white pathways; yet instead of flowers all she can see are jewels – jewels of every color and shape, glittering in the torchlight like a sea of stars.

“I thought you might like it here,” he says, waving his hand flippantly, though his eyes watch carefully for her reaction, a shadow of tension on his face.

Mallory spins around, her eyes taking in the shocking display of death’s wealth. “No living thing can stay in the Underworld,” she intones again, her hand tracing the bark of a lone dead tree.

“No,” he says, his azure eyes following her every move, “except for you.”

Silence stretches as she stares at the cold, soulless gems. Warmth seeps away from her body. “You don’t like it,” Michael says flatly.

She turns to him. “How long have I been here already?”

He pauses. “In human terms, not long.”

“How long, Michael?” she presses, stepping closer to him. Even wearing heels she must dip her head back to be able to look him in the eye from this proximity. He towers over her, a mix of light and dark and danger. “What is happening above? Are my sisters well?”

“It’s not important,” he says breezily, “you don’t need to concern yourself with any of that anymore.”

“But I _want_ to know. I _deserve_ to know.” She feels as if she’s standing on the edge of a cliff; one wrong move and she’ll fall tumbling down. “If you insist on keeping me here, the least you can do is answer my questions.”

He bends his head towards her. His eyes have grown dark, becoming two pits of inky madness. “What would you do then, for me to answer your questions?”

Mallory’s blood fires with rage. She draws back sharply. “I’m not your fucking whore, Michael.”

“Could have fooled me,” he hisses.

Before she can consider what she’s doing, she lifts her hand and slaps him across the face. The sound echoes in the quiet of the garden like a scream.

She watches as he presses his hand to his cheek, amazement flashing across his eyes. His teeth shine with blood. The rings she wears seem to have done more damage than intended.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again,” she says, pushing her blossoming regret down, down, gone.

 

-

 

She asks the Mazikeen for news from home.

“We cannot say, Mistress,” the twins trill, sadness shining in their mismatched eyes, “the Master forbade it.”

Mallory wants to scream. She wants to scream and kick and yell and destroy and, most of all, make Michael _pay_. It’s a foreign feeling, coiling in her chest, so restless and hungry, so hungry.

“Then maybe you could visit Miss Cordelia and tell her I’m fine? When you go to the world above, to get me food. It would be just a moment, and they would know not to worry,” she pleads.

The demons shake their heads. “We cannot interact with the living. We’re sorry, Mistress, so sorry.”

Mallory closes her eyes, hand flying to her neck as if that could ease the pressure in her throat. She feels so lost, so aimless, in this dark suffocating nightmare of a place.

Her fingers brush over her sun necklace. Her one last link to home.

“Could you bring an object to the world above?”

They nod.

She closes her hand around the thin chain and pulls.

 

-

 

His eyes are fixed on a point somewhere over her shoulder. “I believe… I overstepped yesterday,” he says.

It’s strange, how after everything she’s been through, she still has the ability to feel surprised.

“Yes, you have,” she says breezily, attempting to sidestep him. He blocks her way.

“I regret that.”

He looks down at her expectantly. Mallory grits her teeth.

“So you should,” she bites out. She makes another attempt at evading him, but he moves with her, stepping back with every step she takes forward. He seems to be everywhere around her, his scent and his power assaulting all of her senses.

“Is that your lamentable attempt at an apology?” she asks. “Because if so, you actually have to _say_ the words to get the desired effect.”

“Mallory,” he says in a low voice, sparks of humor dancing in his ocean-blue eyes. He presses his hand over his heart with flourish, “I am terribly sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Fine,” she sighs. This time she succeeds in moving past him, but he follows after her, one of his large hands finding its way to the small of her back. She no longer stiffens at his touch, having found that it only makes him more irritable when she does so, and she has no use for his childish antics. (She doesn’t lean into him, either. That would be far too self-indulgent.)

“I need something to do,” she tells him, as he leads her through the grand doors to the throne room. “I hate being useless, I need a purpose here.”

“Because of idle hands, the house leaks, isn’t that right? You’re such a good, hard-working girl, Mallory.” He smiles mockingly. “You know that whatever you need, the Mazikeen will provide for you. All you need to do is say the words.”

“I want to rule with you.”

He stops in his tracks. The hand on her back moves to the curve of her hip and he turns her swiftly, so that she’s facing him. Her whole world narrows to the blaze of his eyes.

Michael is the sun and she’s flying too close, risking too much. She’s going to get burned.

This is not a game.

(This is survival.)

She lays her palm against his chest. “You’ve shared your power with me. I can look into their souls, witness their lives, their memories, their deeds – and you know I can be just. I’m not as jaded as you are, I have a fresh outlook, and we could change so much for the better – all they need is _mercy_ –,”

“That’s not possible, Mallory, you should know it by now,” he says impatiently. “I am not the only devil down here. There are rules we must follow, otherwise we descend into chaos. I assure you, it is not something you’d like to experience.” 

Her fingers curl into the lapel of his jacket. “What rules are you talking about?”

“Show no pity,” he says, his voice a caress of darkness, “an eye for an eye, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound. We are the promised vengeance of the Lord. Of your _God_.”

“You said God has no power over this place.”

She can feel his heartbeat beneath her hand, hard and strong, in sync with her own. She draws herself to her tiptoes, their lips a whisper apart. “You are the one who rules this place.” He holds himself so still against her; all that coiled power, wildness, and cruelty – restrained, for her. It makes her light-headed. “You should be the one to decide.”

She lets go of him then, making her way to the petitioners.

She touches their souls, one after another, pressing crosses into translucent skin. Delivering pain when it is deserved; delivering mercy when it is needed.

And he lets her.

 

-

 

“You were not made for this,” he says, long beringed fingers tapping against his cheek in contemplation. He looks up at her, at her flushed cheeks and trembling hands, her hungry eyes. She knows exactly what he sees.

She’s perched on the edge of his desk – far enough for comfort, yet still close enough to touch, if she wished so. Leaning back on her hands, she watches him from under her lashes, tranquility beneath her skin. “And you were?”

“Not at first,” he says. “But then I was remade, with one purpose in mind.”

 _So was I_ , she remembers _._

He leans forward, one finger brushing her bare calf under her skirt. Mallory’s heart stutters in her chest.

“You think setting a few sinners free will change anything? For every damned you release from Hell, another ten will take their place.”

“I must try anyway.”

He doesn’t scold her. Doesn’t threaten her. Doesn’t deny her. She _almost_ likes him, this way.

“How did you find out about that?” she asks.

His hand closes around her ankle, then slides off her shoe. He draws her foot to rest against his thigh, and she shivers at the feeling of his strong muscles tensing beneath the fabric of his slacks. She can imagine him at her mercy, lying at her feet; helpless, hers to do as she pleases.

“I can feel you everywhere,” he says. “In the darkness of Hades, it’s like you’re dripping in gold.”

That connection between them, it should scare her.

It would have scared her, before.

“Feed me, please,” she says instead. Her voice is soft – too innocent, too girlish for how lascivious these three words sound, and for the abominable things they mean. And especially for the way he looks at her, standing up from his chair languidly, a lion nearing his pray, caging her in.

She licks her lips. “Do you kiss all the demons you bless?”

“I don’t bless,” he says, lips curving down briefly, “I curse.”

“Well then, do you?”

“Does the idea of that excite you?”

Before she can stop herself, a startled laugh escapes her throat. Her hand flies to cover her mouth but it’s too late. “Why do you always do that?” she manages between giggles.

His own lips twitch at the corners as he looks down at her; his eyes are soft and unbearably blue. “I enjoy the sound of your laugh.”

He takes her hands in his, a gentle, careful touch. He feels warmer now, or maybe it’s Mallory who is growing colder, who is being buried alive.

“Close your eyes,” he says, and she obeys, willing herself to relax into him. She feels the wisps of his power brushing her skin, filling her lungs, entering her bloodstream. She grabs at it hungrily, draws it inside her, reaching for more, more, _more_ —

“That’s enough,” Michael hums above her ear, letting go of her hands.

Her mouth gapes open, as if mid-breath. She is filled to the brim yet she can feel so clearly it’s still not enough. What Michael keeps locked inside him calls to her, and she’s clenching inside, insatiable.

He brushes the back of his fingers against her cheek, and his skin is as warm as hers.

“Wear something nice tonight,” he says, stepping back, “we’re having guests for dinner.”

 

-

 

Out of seven princes of Hell, that night Mallory dines with three.

Michael makes her sit by his side at the head of the table, so close their sleeves brush with each move. This show of possessiveness makes her bristle, and she entertains the thought of ignoring his orders and seating herself anywhere else – until she meets their guests.

“Is she for me?” is the first thing Baal says when he arrives, his starved watery eyes fixed on Mallory, sharp-nailed fingers curving into claws against the table. “Can I eat her, Master?”

She tenses, more out of surprise than fear. Michael’s presence at her side is solid, reassuring; she realizes he must have known this would happen, his – what, friends? enemies? colleagues? brothers? – would see her as a challenge; a riddle to solve, or maybe, more accurately, a puzzle to _crack_.

Under the table, Michael lays his hand on her knee. It’s brief, the warmth of his skin bleeding through her dress, anchoring her in place. She brushes her fingers against the back of his hand. He lets go.

“No, you cannot,” Michael says calmly, as if the conversation concerned an apple pie, “she is my guest here, and any trespass against her is a trespass against me.”

The declaration makes her heart stir. Across the table, Asmodeus gazes at her with his violet cat eyes, calculating, missing nothing. “It is delightful to have such charming company with us, for once,” he says huskily, and Mallory feels herself blush against all reason. He’s beautiful – yet not in the blinding, heavenly way of Michael; Asmodeus, with his sensuous red lips and silky dark hair curling over his temples, seems to be the embodiment of every human desire, every craving of the flesh. He moves in a languid, feline way, full of promise; and when he looks at you, you begin to believe giving into temptation even for just a few blissful moments, is worth spending an eternity in Hell.

“Yes, speaking of company,” Michael drawls out, “we are four short. Care to explain why?”

Asmodeus shrugs. “Busy, I presume. You know that Belph and Levi never leave their domains, anyway. And Mammon is always being summoned. Never gets a holiday, poor chap.”

Those bottomless violet eyes fix on her, as if clawing their way through her skin and ribcage and sinews, straight to her soul. Her body floods with heat.

He picks up a strawberry, ripe and red and bleeding juice; he flicks his tongue over it, eyes never leaving hers. Tension builds in Mallory, rapid and on the verge of painful. The heat spreads lower, to the apex of her thighs, building a pulsating rhythm, and her nipples harden against the lace of her bra, underneath the gown she wears. Asmodeus swipes his tongue over his lower lip, and she suddenly wants that tongue inside her, licking at her folds, relieving the pressure that’s beginning to drive her mad, ringed fingers digging into her thighs and a golden head bent so reverently over her–

“What about Lucifer?”

Asmodeus swallows the fruit. “Busy.”

Michael shifts in his seat, his arm brushing hers, and she shudders, even that smallest of frictions sending shock waves across her oversensitive skin. He turns to her, and she refuses to meet his eyes. “Are you alright?” he asks softly, taking in her flushed skin, her shaking hands.

“I’m fine,” she gasps out.

His eyes flash darkly. “Asmodeus.”

The pressure subsides as the demon chuckles, the sound silky and sweet. “Forgive me. Old habits die _hard_.”

Mallory sags in her seat. Although the terrible haze of lust has passed, the pounding between her thighs is still present, as is the wetness, soaking through her panties. She presses her shaking knees together tightly, gritting her teeth.

“As you know,” Asmodeus continues, “I visited Levi recently and the Legions are in splendid shape—,"

“I’m starving,” Baal moans suddenly, staring feverishly at Michael, his hollow cheeks flushing sickly, “why won’t you let me feed?”

Asmodeus rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up, you imbecile. It’s not like you’ve gone hungry for longer than a couple of hours.”

“You will not feed here, Baal,” Michael says in a clipped tone. “You will wait until we’ve finished and left – and only then will you be allowed anything. Unless you don’t _behave_.”

“Master—,” the demon hisses.

Mallory swallows hard. “Why is he forbidden to dine with us?”

“It is not a sight for you to see, sparrow.”

Baal’s wide mouth stretches as he turns to her. “You and I are alike in this way,” he wheezes.

“How so?”

“Both of us can only eat the food from the Above.”

Mallory reaches for her plate, still half-full with fruit and sweetmeats, with the intention of passing it to the demon. “We can share, then—”

Asmodeus bursts out laughing. Michael catches her wrist, guiding her to lower the plate back to the table. “He does not want any of these. He feeds on human flesh.”

A wave of revulsion rocks her, even though she knows none of it should be surprising her at this point. Each prince of Hell has his own brand of devilry, his own parcel of Hell to exact their rule upon, to fulfill their role. They’re the cogs in the clockwork, programmed to deliver suffering. She wants to believe that their existence is necessary for the world to function the way it’s supposed to. She wants to believe they’re fair. But the very thought of the chaos that would reign if Michael hadn’t been there to keep them all in place frightens her like nothing else.

“Living human flesh, that is,” Asmodeus adds with a sinuous smile on his red lips, “although it is true that soon there won’t be any more of that left—,”

She wants to ask why, feeling dread crawling up her skin, but then his violet eyes flash and she _ignites_.

It’s worse than before. The pressure feels like thousands of needles digging into her skin, and every inch of her clothed body burns; the pounding between her legs becomes pain. Her vision grows hazy, reddening at the edges, and between one blink and the other she sees the devil at her feet, his golden head between her legs, teasing, taunting, licking up her thighs, so close to where she wants him and yet so terribly far. She curls her fingers into the fabric of her dress, trying to stop herself from reaching out, from doing—whatever she _needs_ to do to stop this terrible feeling.

They keep talking around her, but she doesn’t understand a single word through her daze. All she can focus on is the pulsing, and the fire in her blood, the electricity coursing through her nerves, and it’s too much, too much, she can’t—

She lashes out.

It’s easy, almost too easy, to finally let the darkness rush out of her. The moment her power hits Asmodeus, setting him ablaze, heavenly relief washes over her. She watches as he writhes in the flames, his screams filling the hall, inhuman and wretched.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop?” Michael thunders at him. His hand finds its way back to her knee and she flinches; she’s tender all over, her body a bundle of frazzled nerves and she’s still hungry, so hungry. Her cunt is still pulsing. Still clenching on nothing. Her legs shake.

She lets the flames die.

The demons look at Michael in terrified submission, cowed by his show of power. _His_ power, not hers. Neither of them pay her any mind, because neither of them even consider the possibility of her being capable of anything of this magnitude. She shouldn’t be able to summon hellfire. She shouldn’t be able to do anything at all.

Michael doesn’t prove them wrong.

She feels dizzy. Her clothes seem too tight. “Excuse me,” she says, pushing away from the table, her weak legs barely holding her upright.

“Mallory,” Michael calls, standing up with her, reaching out.

She waves her hand dismissively, not meeting his eyes. “I’m fine, just tired – please go on without me,” she says, and tries her best not to run.

She barely makes it to her bed before her fingers are between her folds, rubbing furiously at her clit. She dips one, two fingers inside herself, and her back arches off the bed, but it’s nowhere near enough. She closes her eyes.

In the darkness she sees Michael, nestled between her legs, his hair tickling her thighs. “Let me help you,” he says and then buries his face in her cunt. His tongue thrusts shallowly in and out of her, slick and wet, thumb circling her clit forcefully, and she’s twisting and trembling all over, her mouth open in a scream.

She comes with his name on her lips.  

 

-

 

Time in the Underworld is a circle. There is no beginning, no end – for Hell is made for suffering, and suffering is eternal. Nothing ever breaks the chain.

Enter Mallory.

She trails her hands up the bark of the dried tree, her face struck with wonder. There are no leaves hanging off the branches. No signs of life.

Except for the one, shiny fruit.

Michael picks the pomegranate from the tree. He looks at it curiously, a scientist inspecting a new specimen. Then he breaks it in two.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” Mallory says, peering up at him from beneath her lashes. The pomegranate juice stains his fingers red; the seeds look perfectly ripe and healthy. Even the smell is right, the winy kind of sweetness that reminds her of home.

Michael smiles; it lacks his usual sharpness. “Humans shouldn’t be living in the Underworld. Humans shouldn’t be wielding the power of death. And yet, you do. It seems you’re intent on breaking every rule we have down here.”

He steps towards her and her heartbeat thunders in her ears.

Something has changed. Something has broken. She can no longer ignore it; now even when she closes her eyes, she sees his face; he is branded into her.

He holds out the fruit to her. “Care for a taste?”

She takes a step back, lips unconsciously curving into a smile; he follows after her, his red-stained fingers brushing the loose fabric of her dress, then grabbing a fistful of it to keep her in place. They’re so close now, her breasts almost press against his chest. She trails her hands over the lapels of his jacket, then pushes him away. “You will not tempt me, Serpent,” she says.

“Oh, but I must try all the same,” he purrs.

He tosses the fruit to the ground.

When he leaves, Mallory kneels by the jewel beds, feeding them her magic. She watches as they extend into rose bushes, hedges, trees. The garden grows, magnificent; a monument to the darkness. She traces the petals of a sapphire rose, changing their color to carmine. They shine like red stars.

It’s where the Mazikeen find her. “We have a gift for you, Mistress.” They deposit a scrap of paper in Mallory’s hand, their faces twisted in agitation. “We found it where we’d left your necklace before, at the witch house. But we cannot say more, Mistress, we’re sorry, we cannot say more.”

“No, wait, please—,” Mallory calls after them, but they disappear into nothing.

She looks down at the paper in her hands. It’s wrinkled, its edges uneven, as if it were ripped out of a book, and then carried in a pocket for a long time. With shaking hands, she turns it around.

There’s only one sentence, scribbled in Coco’s trembling cursive.

_You were supposed to save us_

Mallory reads it over and over, the words blurring in front of her eyes. Tears fall to the paper, smudging the ink into black blots of sorrow.

 _I haven’t forgotten you_ , she wants to scream at the heavens, _I haven’t forsaken you. I will come back,_

but no one would hear.

 

-

 

They say the descent into Hell is easy. This is not the truth.

The descent into Hell is bloody and every second of the fall chips at your soul; so when you step foot into the Underworld, there is nothing left.

Mallory prays for the last time, bare knees cold and stiff on the marble floor.

“Forgive me Father,” she whispers, clasping her hands together so tightly they go white, “for what I’m about to do.”

That night, she strips herself of light.

 

-

 

She goes to him. All that can be heard in the silence of his bedroom is the rustle of her silk nightgown as she approaches him, close, closer, until they stand a whisper away.

He stands still, hands kept stiffly at his sides. There’s tension in him, growing all the more while she runs her fingers over the buttons of his waistcoat. She undoes them slowly, from top to bottom. Her fingers don’t shake.

The waistcoat slips off easily and she lets it fall in a heap to the floor. She moves to the buttons of his shirt but his hands come up and wrap themselves around her wrists. “Don’t,” he says hoarsely, his eyes darkening. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Hysteria bubbles in her chest and she wants to laugh. Whatever she may feel about it, she knows _exactly_ what she’s doing.

“I want this,” she tells him, tearing her hands free from his grasp. She goes back to undoing the buttons, nails trailing softly over the pale skin she uncovers. He looks down at her with those sharp, cruel eyes, almost completely black now, his mouth tight. She is not afraid of him.

She pushes the fabric off his shoulders and tosses it to the floor. She presses her hands to his chest, feeling his muscles tense beneath her touch. He is tall and slim, his very presence commanding, his magic a lash that keeps even the most powerful beings in check – yet of his physical strength she’s only ever seen glimpses. But now, having it out in the open in front of her eyes, it stirs something inside her, some deep, primal hunger, that has nothing to do with the magic she craves.

She stands on her tiptoes, hands trailing up his chest to his neck. She brushes her lips against his, softly, teasingly, and he hisses harshly.

“I want more,” she whispers between her kisses, “I _need_ more.”

He groans out her name as she nips at his bottom lip, then flicks her tongue over it, soothing the sting.

“Please,” she begs, as sweetly as she can, “more.”

He kisses her back then, arms curving around her waist and pulling her closer to him, until their bodies are flush together. She feels his hardness pressing against her stomach, sending shocks of electricity through her nerves. He’s still so gentle with her, touching her as if she were a porcelain doll, ready to break in his hands. She finds that it makes her furious; she wants him to be rough and wild and monstrous, wants that terrible strength of his to turn on her, to mark her. His reverence makes it harder for her to do what needs to be done.

“More,” she tells him, opening her mouth, offering herself, expectant, ready.

His stills, their foreheads touching. “Are you sure?”

She nods.

 _This is survival_ , she reminds herself, willing herself to believe.

He exhales into her, and she can feel his power in her veins, in her bones, in her mind. She drinks it in greedily, thrashing in his arms noisily, feverishly, and the taste of him is wine and fire and sin and death and she never wants to let go.

He attempts to draw back, but she stops him, wrapped around him like a vine.

“More,” she orders, biting at his lip, pressing herself impossibly closer, making him groan. He obeys, filling her up, filling her to the brim and then even more. He kisses the corners of her lips, her nose, her chin, licking down her neck, pressing his mouth to her pulse point. It draws a strangled moan from her throat, and his fingers tighten on her waist, hard, bruising, and the pleasure it brings her makes her hips buck into him desperately.

Mallory takes and takes and takes until she can’t hold onto it anymore; but still she doesn’t stop, letting the power build around her like a halo. She takes until he has no more to give, his lips cracking beneath hers, swollen, spent.

She pushes him to his knees.

The air cracks with static. She can feel everything – every particle, every creature, every soul of the Underworld – at her mercy; bound to her will.

Michael stares up at her, his once cerulean eyes now completely black. His bleeding lips are parted. She wonders if he’ll beg.

She tangles her fingers in his silky hair, tugging at it softly, and he closes his eyes, leaning into her touch.

All she can think is: it was so easy. So predictable. Myrtle used to say men always are.

“What did you think would happen,” she asks, “when you gave me all you had?”

He smiles a slow smile, eyes opening, full of wonder. “Everything,” he says.

She imagines that he’s human. That he needs air to survive, and that he’s fragile and helpless, the way humans are, and he has no magic to aid him, when that precious life-saving air is taken away.

And she wills it to happen.

She watches as he collapses to the floor, a harsh, dreadful sound escaping his lips as he gasps for air. His muscles ripple beneath his skin as he chokes. He claws at his throat, claws at the floor. Time seems to come to a lazy crawl, seconds stretching in his suffering.

Mallory watches, hoping it brings her relief.

(It doesn’t.)

She makes it stop.

Michael crawls back to his knees. It takes him no time to come back to his collected self, unlike Mallory back in those first moments of her stay in the Underworld, when she would constantly gasp for air, thrashing like a fish out of water. Still, his eyes are glittering from the pain she's caused him, and there’s blood dripping from his nose, down his neck, down his chest.

He lifts his hand to touch her, but she stops him mid-motion, building up an invisible barrier between them.

“If I may advise you, sparrow,” he says hoarsely, “if you want your punishment to be deprivation, make sure to actually deprive of something the other cannot bear to part with. Depriving someone of something they’d never needed makes the punishment far less effective.”

Mallory looks down at him, feels how the darkness twists inside her.

There is no divinity left in her, not anymore.

“You’ve hurt me, Michael,” she says, and he closes his eyes. “You’ve hurt me, so much.”

“Forgive me,” he rasps out.

“Now I must hurt you in turn. An eye for an eye, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound. Isn’t that right?”

His eyes open. There is no defiance in them, no anger. She doesn’t know what to do with that.

“You must starve, like I did,” she says, and her power rises, forging her words into reality. “Forty days and forty nights you will starve, and you will suffer, and I will not lift a finger to help you.”

She will unmake him, like he unmade her.

“Forgive me,” he repeats in a terrible, broken voice, but Mallory turns on her heel.

She leaves him on his knees.


	5. five for heaven

 

 

> _I asked him to do it again and again. Do it to me. And he did, did it in the unctuousness of blood. And it really was unto death. It has been unto death._
> 
> Marguerite Duras, The Lover.

 

 

**-**

 

**v. five for heaven.**

-

 

There is a glow to her cheeks, to her eyes. Her lips are a warm pink, gently curving upwards, softening her edges. The reflection staring at her from the mirror looks angelic. _Divine_.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

She wonders: is she cruel? Is she selfish? Has the Underworld consumed her so completely; has it turned her blood to acid, her heart to rot? Why is it not written across her face?

Mallory tries to remember who she is.

A daughter. A sister. A blessed hope. A sacrifice. Names blur in her mind, and none of the old ones are real anymore, no matter how hard she tries to pretend otherwise. The truth crawls to the surface like mold, unbidden and hideous.

She is: a human, ruling the Underworld, with a soft hand and untrained eyes.

She is: a woman, keeping a man locked in a prison of his own making.

Beneath her dress there are two sets of finger-shaped bruises blooming over her hips, purple and sore; the only visible reminder of what she’s done. (She doesn’t heal herself.)

 

-

 

She comes to regret her choice.

It was a matter of principle, she tells herself, a matter of retribution. He deserved a taste of his own medicine. But where do you draw the line, between what is just and what is right? You get to consider that a lot when you rule in Hell.

Punishing him was not convenient, certainly. For one, ruling is an all-consuming business—life-draining, and nerve-wracking. Her skin has grown thicker, but it still takes its toll on her; and although it brings her comfort to know that at last, thanks to her, the souls of the dead get to experience mercy and kindness, she wishes, in the depths of her conscience, that she didn’t have to carry this burden on her own. It steals her time, too – she measures the passage of time with the meals the Mazikeen deliver her – or at least attempts to, hoping they have a better sense of it than she does. (They don’t, she finds out later, for they never had a need for it, before Mallory came.)

Not to mention the ever-present loneliness, that clings to her bones like a winter chill, despite being surrounded by her subjects every waking hour. And the fact that, for some unfathomable reason, she _misses_ him.

(Misses the way his eyes followed her every move. The way he would say all those outlandish things, waiting to draw out a laugh from her. His touch. His eyes. His smile.)

And the most unfortunate of all is: she cannot go back. Not yet. She cannot leave the Underworld to fend for itself, not without Michael, not for the volatile princes to plunge into ruin.

So she stays, waiting.

 

-

 

On her bedside table she finds a file.

She rummages through it, finding photographs and loose lists of names and dates that mean nothing to her, the dusty torn-out pages of a grimoire, covered in Latin. _Tempus infinitum_ , it reads, over and over, the one constant in an endless incantation. _You must drown to turn back._

And the maps. Outpost 1. Outpost 2. Outpost 3, underlined.

A post-it, and written in a steady, elegant script, in Cordelia’s hand is: _be ready_.

She swears she will be.

 

-

 

Time stretches, circles. Souls she’s thought she’d seen before are no longer there. She searches for the shadows of their footprints, the translucent splotches of power that mark their punishments – but they’re gone. It makes her curious.

She asks, “has Michael released Rose as he’d promised?”

“Yes, Mistress,” the Mazikeen tell her, “right after you became sick, Mistress. She went on, into the light.”

It makes her pause. She wavers before the doors of the great hall, her thoughts scattered. None of it matches up. None of it makes any sense. “Are you sure?” she throws, nonchalantly, “I thought he’d done it only after I’d been given my power.”  

“Oh, no, we remember clearly. We were giving you cold towels for your fever when we felt it. It was a rare feeling then, like relief. Her ascent made us lighter.”

The bargain, the sacrifice, the way he played with her – that’s all it was, a game. Would he have given her his power if she’d denied him? Would it have changed anything?

_Rare._

It was _rare_.

“Who else has he released?”

Hesitation flashes across their faces. Mallory’s lips tighten as her power rises. “Who rules you now, Maze?”

“You do, Mistress,” they answer obediently.

“Then tell me.”

 

-

 

“Where is my illustriously nefarious Master?” Lucifer asks, bowing before Mallory with an exaggerated flourish.

His whole being sets her on edge – from the wicked glint of his emerald eyes that seem to be taunting her very existence, to his terrible faux-charming grin – so she puts a smile on her face and stands up from Michael’s throne, a heavy crown of ruby roses resting on her head. “He’s busy,” she says sweetly, pinning him down with her gaze.

“So it is true,” Lucifer says with delight. “I could hardly believe it – the Underworld gossip can so rarely be trusted these days.”

She raises her brows. “What do you mean?”

“First, it was nothing terribly shocking, to be honest,” he says, eyes raking over her form, bruising in their ferocity, “Michael stole a witch from Above and keeps her as his mistress. More pathetic than anything else, really—but then, oh, the things I’ve heard.” His eyes narrow in pleasure. “Nauseating.”

Mallory’s blood turns to ice. She extends her hand to him. “Walk with me,” she tells him.

“It would be my pleasure.” He offers her his arm, the leather of his coat slippery and cold beneath her fingers.

She leads him to the garden, partly because it’s the place where she feels the most like herself, and partly to show him his own insignificance in the face of her power, Michael’s power.

“Do you want to know what I’ve heard?”

He stands too close. It makes her skin crawl, but she forces herself to stand her ground, proud and untouchable. She nods, obliging.

“I’ve heard that he, the blundering fool that he is, stole none other than the _Lamb of God,_ before it was ready for slaughter. The next _Messiah_.” He says the names like curses, venom dripping from his tongue. Mallory’s hands fold into fists.

Lucifer’s smile grows even wider. “And I couldn’t believe it – couldn’t believe someone could be _this_ stupid. And I say stupid, because it surely wasn’t his intention – as much as he hates humans, poor Michael would never want God’s favorite playground destroyed…”

“What makes you say that?” she hears herself asking, her nails sinking deep into the skin of her palm. “After all, he is your Master – I believe one does not get to rule Hell for one’s leniency.”

Lucifer turns his head and spits to the ground. When he looks back at her, his eyes are pools of swirling madness. “He did not get to rule the Underworld for his merits, nor for his failures. God cast him down to punish _me_. What worse torment is there than being ruled by your greatest adversary?” He moves down the path, and Mallory follows him on shaking legs. “He did fail to stop me from waging war on Heaven, back in the day – but it wasn’t his fault alone. Not enough to be stripped of his wings and light and His grace and thrown into the lowest depths of the pit – trust me, _lamb_ , you cannot imagine the unholy pain of that.”

“It used to be better here, when I was in charge,” he continues, tucking her hand back in the crook of his elbow. “He has no heart for real punishment, for real suffering. All he ever does is mope about why the Almighty punished him so.” He smiles down at her. “Does he cry on your shoulder? I can imagine he does.”

“It makes me so sad,” she says finally, her voice a concoction of serenity and sweetness, “to see how the mighty have fallen. You used to be one of God’s most beloved, the son of the dawn. Now you’re nothing more than a spiteful worm, crawling in the ground.”

“Pity me, _darling_.” He curls his fingers around her wrist and squeezes tight. “Mock me, _dearest_. But in the end, you are here, hoarded like one of his jewels, while my work is done Above, bringing the end of time to your precious earth. When I’m finished with it, there will be nothing left of it but ash.”

Mallory grits her teeth. Her power tears into him like a storm, like a hurricane, pinning him to the ground with such terrible force, ichor starts dripping from his eyes, from his nose, from his mouth. “You will not hurt anyone, do you understand? I will not allow it. I will banish you to the deepest, fieriest of pits, and you will never even _think_ of earth.”

He laughs and then chokes on his own blood. “It is already done. There is nothing you can do to stop it.”

She presses into him harder with her magic, hard enough that his bones crack with a deafening snap. It doesn’t stop his laughter. “You impress me, lamb—wielding the power of death, sullying yourself with it, sullying your soul _and_ flesh—letting the Devil taste you inside out, the blasphemy of it shocks even myself—”

“The Lord rebuke you,” she calls, her hold on him tightening, squeezing, crushing—

“Maybe He cast you down here for a reason, too,” Lucifer hisses with the last of his voice, “maybe He came to know how useless you are and got rid of you—foolish to think a woman could do a man’s work. But don’t worry, maybe next time He’ll get it right.”

The ground opens beneath him. He falls into the roaring flames, and she binds him there, at the core of the world.

She closes her eyes.

He no longer screams.

 

-

 

In the end she finds him as she’d left him – on his knees.

Her gaze drifts to his hollowed eyes and sunken cheeks, to his cracked lips, darkened with dried blood. A shell of a man – a shell of a monster – that she wanted to see. That was supposed to bring her relief.

Michael looks up at her from his spot on the floor with hunger burning sickly in his eyes. It’s a flame, it’s hellfire, deceptively dim in the darkness. He is a feral creature, all the more for how much he’s been beaten.

She remembers—a wounded animal is the most dangerous.

Mallory presses her back to the door, steeling herself.

The stories will say: she was merciful. She was good and forgiving and shed her grace even on the most worthless of creatures.

But the truth of this very moment is: she’s lonely. Bone-achingly lonely. And cold. Since he’s been away she’s always so cold.

 _I should go back_ , she thinks, frozen in place, eyes never leaving his. _I should give back what I’ve taken and go back._

She doesn’t move.

Michael climbs to his feet. “Am I forgiven?” he asks in a rough, cracking voice, and she winces at how painful it sounds.

 _I should go back,_ she tells herself one last time.

She leans her weight against the door.

“Yes,” she says, “I forgive you.”

He rises, a figure made of shadow and nightmare, and before she has time to blink he’s at her side, towering over her with his ravenous eyes and sharp, gleaming teeth. He tangles his fingers in her hair and tugs at it, bringing her head back so she’s forced to look him in the eye. Michael’s lips descend on hers, slowly, softly, a feather-light touch in comparison to the prickling pain at her scalp from the way he’s pulling at her hair.

She watches as he smiles against her lips, barely touching her skin. She watches as his features smoothen, hollows filling out, rosiness coming back to his face.

She hasn’t lifted her curse yet.

It hits her then, the terrible magnitude of her mistake. She expected him to lash out, to wage war on her; she did not expect to be beaten at her own game.

“You could have stopped it any time you wanted,” she whispers hoarsely. Michael’s grin widens. He loosens his grip on her hair, instead combing his fingers through her locks with care. “And yet you didn’t. Why?”

His power curls around them both; stronger, more magnificent than Mallory has ever felt before.

“You needed this,” he tells her, words laced with the sweetness of falsehood. “I deserved to suffer for what I’ve done to you.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s the truth.”

Mallory rises to the tips of her toes. She grabs a fistful of his shirt. “Not the whole truth, then.”

“No,” he hums, hands sliding down to rest on her hips. With a jolt she realizes how much she’s really longed for his warmth, his closeness. He surrounds her completely, caging her in – he’s everything she sees, everything she feels – and against all odds, she finally feels at peace. “If you want to know so badly, sparrow,” he says nuzzling at her cheek, “I needed to be sure—I needed to know if you’re capable of doing what needs to be done. If you can be ruthless. Selfish. If you have the strength to endure Hell. Endure _me_.”

His words send a chill down her spine. She leans into him unconsciously and marvels at the way his muscles tense when their bodies touch, despite his show of dominance. “And?” she prompts, “did I pass?”

“Oh, yes,” he purrs, “you did splendidly, my dear.”

She grabs at him then, ungentle and hurried, dragging him down to press her lips to his. He obeys her, offering his mouth, open and soft, and she winds her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, as close as they can get.

He lifts her off the ground.

The back of her legs hit the edge of the bed.

Mallory’s head swims as she falls into the soft sheets, Michael crawling above her with predatory litheness. Her desire brims inside her; she is a glass, too-full, spilling, dripping, and there is no room for denial, not anymore. The reasons why she should leave him—why she should despise him—blur in her mind until all that’s left is the pulsing of her blood, the shaking of her limbs and the gaping need that consumes her whole being. She needs she needs _she needs_ —    

He says her name like a prayer against her skin, pressing kisses over her cheeks, her jawline, down her neck, to the point where her pulse beats so wildly, he must hear the terrible thundering of her heart. She peels his shirt off, the seam tearing in her impatience. His lips leave a warm trail of pleasure on her skin—so soft, _too soft_ , it makes her back arch off the bed, shuddering, desperate to feel more—his fingers pressing slow, torturous circles to her hips over the lace of her dress.

Mallory runs her hands down his back, feeling the twin jagged scars spanning from his shoulder blades. Her heart quivers. Something inside her snaps, sorrow turning into grief turning into blind, hot anger.

“Michael,” she says, digging her nails into his skin, “I’m not made of glass—”

“But you _are_ still human,” he says, tracing her pink lips, her flushed cheeks, one of his hands slipping down to cup her breast. Electricity courses through her veins. She tugs down the zipper of her dress hurriedly, pulling the fabric off her shoulders until it bunches around her waist; unclasps her bra. His eyes darken as he watches her bare her skin, an offering, lily-white and trembling. _Devour me_ , it seems to beg. He leans down, obliging.

He flicks his tongue over her nipple and she gasps, toes curling in pleasure. Her hands curl into his hair, pulling harshly, nails raking over his scalp until he groans, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her breast. “Please,” she manages to say, one of her legs hooking over his hip. “I want—”

“What do you want, little bird?” he asks, voice raspy, growing more strained as she bucks against him.

She guides his hand between her legs, beneath the soaked fabric of her panties. “I want more,” she chokes out as he pushes a finger inside her.

“Not good enough,” he says, curling his digit inside her. One of his rings scrapes over her clit, sending shockwaves through her body.

Mallory’s eyes roll to the back of her head, a needy, keening sound escaping her throat. “I want this,” she moans, trembling, clawing at the sheets.

“Not good enough,” he hisses, two—now three fingers stilling inside her. He looks down on her writhing form, the red of her cheeks, the swollen pink of her open lips. “Say it. Say it for everyone to hear.”

She shivers. “You said you don’t believe anyone can hear us down here.”

Michael smiles, a sharp, cruel thing. “But you _do_.”   

It doesn’t matter, she realizes, not anymore, not through the dark haze of need that clouds her mind. She rocks against his fingers, desperate for friction, and says, “I want you,” and then over and over again, the words spilling from her mouth without end, as his fingers push in and out, in and out, until she comes and her words dissolve into sobs.

She wraps her arms around him, pulling him on top of her, until he covers her shivering form completely. He kisses her, slow and deep.

It’s not enough.

The heavy weight of his cock is scalding against her skin. “Michael,” she sighs into his lips, reaching between their bodies to unclasp his belt, hungry, craving, begging, “please.”

“Tell me what you want,” he says, a tremor running through his body. He helps her discard his pants, hurried despite his mask of composure.

He watches her like she’s everything there is for him, and his eyes—once the cerulean of the summer sky—have become the inky black of the night.

“I want you,” she says, cupping his face, dragging her fingertips over the sharpness of his jaw, “to make your home inside me.”

He shudders under her touch.

And as she takes him, as she cries out his name into the darkness, as he spills inside her—his seed and his power and the rest of his cursed soul—

—at last, she becomes queen.

 

-

 

In her dreams, she drowns.

She drowns in black water, hair billowing around her face like a cloud of smoke, and she’s always too late, lungs constricting, hurting, limbs going cold and stiff and she can’t breathe and she’s falling falling—

She wakes to a golden head poised above her, long fingers running through her hair soothingly.

“Bad dream?” he asks, the corners of his wide, sensuous lips drawn down.

Beads of sweat trail down her neck, between her breasts, along her spine. She feels feverish, unhinged. She nods.

“What a delightful concept,” he says, mouth latching at her throat.

 

-

 

“Lucifer came,” she says. She rests her head against Michael’s chest, spent and boneless, fingertips tracing patterns into his skin. She presses triquetras and elven stars across his ribs, a blessing over his heart. None of them carry any power in the Underworld, but the process itself soothes her, reminds her of home.

Michael hums into her hair. “How did it go?”

She remembers the venomous words, the taunting emerald eyes. He looked so sure of himself, even when the flames consumed him. His laughter rang in her ears long after his voice had gone out.

“I threw him into the eternal fire.”

Michael’s chest shakes with laughter. “He has that effect on people.”

She huffs, and his arms tighten around her, pressing her closer into his sweat-slicked body. She feels him stir beneath her and her blood starts to burn again.

“Surely you must know what he’s been planning—”

“His mind is a nest of vipers,” he muses, palm sliding over her hips, to the pale curve of her ass. He kneads at her flesh and she purrs, stretching like a cat, the hard peaks of her nipples brushing torturously against his chest. “Don’t trouble yourself with trying to understand him.”

One of his fingers dips inside her wet heat, and her thighs clench around his hand ravenously.

As he withdraws, he sucks the wet digit into his mouth, a terrible smile curving his lips. “Come now, my dear,” he coos, grabbing her by the hips and guiding up his body, “feed me.”

Mallory lowers herself onto him, pushing down against his lips. He licks into her greedily, fingers digging into her thighs, and she grinds down on him deliriously, dripping into his gorgeous hungry mouth, and she forgets everything except for his tongue between her folds, teeth scraping against her clit and the stars exploding beneath her eyelids.

Heaven is too far away, and she’s lost.

 

-

 

There is really no way to tell the time in the darkness of Hades. They exist in an endless night, basking in the shadow of death. Save for Mallory, no one sleeps, no one wakes. The sand in the hourglass trickles slowly, grain after grain after grain slipping down, and yet somehow, both upper and lower bulbs remain equally full.

Mallory finds – drunk on her newfound power and warmed by her lover’s touch – that she doesn’t care.  

She watches as Michael dresses himself; the purple bruises scattered over the planes of his chest disappearing beneath the fabric of his shirt, the cuffs of his sleeves closing over the angry red scratches her nails have left. Her proud work hidden from view, for now. She hopes he will keep them, her little souvenirs; a reminder of her until their mockery of a day passes by and she can paint him all over again.

Michael leans over her when she makes a move to rise from the bed, pushing her back into the pillows. “No, sparrow,” he says, finger brushing over her bottom lip, “you stay here today.”

She stiffens, eyes narrowing. “Don’t be silly. I’m going to help you with the judgements.”

“You need rest—”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she cuts in.

His lips tighten in displeasure. “You’ve helped enough. Now you get to relax while I do the heavy work.”

“I don’t need any more relaxing, Michael,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you want me to receive the dead alongside you?”

“I don’t want to see you upset.” One side of his lips curls downwards, a beginning of a snarl. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” she says, unimpressed. “That’s a novel sentiment for sure.”

He sits down by her side, one of his hands reaching out to caress her cheek. Warmth seeps from his fingers into her skin, into her bones. Heaviness settles over her like a warm blanket. “Am I not capable of change?”

“Why are you asking me this?” she asks instead, drowsily leaning into his touch.

“You can visit the personal hells if you want, there are countless souls you can free for your amusement—”

“ _Michael_.”

He sighs. “Can’t you _for once_ obey me?”

“Why?”

She captures his hand in hers, twining their fingers together. She feels tiny with his huge form looming over her, his palm almost twice the size of her own. He gazes down at their interlocked fingers thoughtfully, pressing a slow circle into her skin with his thumb. “There was a bit of a… situation Above, that didn’t end well,” he says at last, not meeting her eye. “It is not a pleasant story. And I wish to spare you that.”

Mallory tenses, hand tightening in his. “Doesn’t that mean you need my help more than ever?”

“Please,” he says, eyes sparking with something dark, something desperate, “do this for me. Sit it out. I’ll deal with it on my own.”

It is her turn to sigh. Guilt sinks its teeth into her heart as she looks at his face, so unusually bare of pretense. She tries to blink it away. “Fine,” she says. “But on one condition.”

“Anything,” he says, a shadow of relief passing over his features.

She fights to keep her eyes open, prickling with weariness. The fogginess in her mind clings on like cotton candy. She can’t shake it out. “Tell me what deal you’ve made with Miss Cordelia.”

He releases her hand. She reaches out to touch his jaw, brushing her fingers over the point where a muscle jumps visibly.

“You never give up, do you, sparrow?” he murmurs, turning his face to the side to kiss her palm.

How she wishes that were true.

“Have I told you about Lucifer’s realm, yet?” he asks. “It’s a separate patch of Hell – a pit, really – where the vilest of souls are imprisoned. The ones you’ve seen around here? They’re sweet darlings in comparison to the ones presided by Lucifer.” He smiles sharply. “And so are their punishments.”

“What’s that have to do with Cordelia?”

“She summoned me—the Devil—if you can believe it. To ask for a favor.” He leans forward, hands trailing up her thighs, his touch raising goosebumps on her skin. “The very ritual must have cost her dearly, or maybe something else had already weakened her… Either way, I never make allowances. So I asked for the most powerful witch on Earth—a terribly steep price, admittedly, and yet Cordelia didn’t even attempt to negotiate with me. As if she was ready to do whatever it took to get me to agree to what she wanted.” His fingers slide beneath Mallory’s nightgown, brushing the edge of her panties. “At the time she thought we were bargaining over her own soul, but in the end, it is _you_ she sold to the Devil. Her sweetest, favorite student. And she left you here, with me. All that sacrifice, just to ensure I would open the gates to Lucifer’s realm when the time came.”

He presses a lingering kiss to her inner thigh, before standing abruptly. “Here you are then, the whole tantalizing story. I hope it was everything you hoped for.” He smiles tightly. “Now, take your rest, my love. I’ll make sure to wake you appropriately when I’m done with my duties.”

Only when he leaves, Mallory starts to shake.

 

-

 

In her dreams, she dies.

She drowns, water filling her lungs, stones at her feet pulling her down.

And just as she’s about to slip away—

Light—

Scalding her eyes—

 _Be ready_ , a voice tells her, warm, familiar, safe, and she reaches out—

The light goes out.

It’s too late.

She wakes up screaming.

 

-

 

“I must go back.”

Dread takes root in her chest, latching at her insides, twisting around her bones. How long has it been? Is she even still alive? Her memories from her life Above are hazy, fragmented; she no longer remembers the sound of Coco’s laugh, the color of Miss Cordelia’s eyes. What she’s left with is dread, and the terrible certainty that her time is running out, and—

“You can’t leave me,” Michael says, tightening his hold on her.

—and the foolish fondness for the chilling magnificence of her garden, for the imposing halls of her palace, for the creatures that dwell its halls – and for the man who rules over them.

They lie on their sides, facing each other. Her eyes catalogue every detail about him, everything that makes him. She tucks it away in her mind, saving for a time when it will be all that she has left of him.

“You don't understand,” she says, sadness slipping through the cracks of her resolve.

“You can’t leave me,” he repeats slowly, as if explaining a basic concept to an exceptionally dense child, “because if you do, you’ll be damning both the living and the dead – for I will rain vengeance on them all if I’m deprived of you again.”

His eyes are serious, mouth set. She finds it difficult to distinguish if he’s bluffing or not.

“Don’t be dramatic,” she says, cupping his cheek gently. He leans into her touch, as he always does, pliant and submissive, for her, only for her.

He looks her in the eye. “I’ll do it. I’m warning you. You have never even glimpsed my true anger yet.”

“I do know how terrible you can be,” she tells him softly, fingers carding through his hair. “How cruel, how mad. But I also know that you’re fair, and capable of kindness, too.”

“Your imagination runs wild, sparrow. You paint me as someone else entirely.”

“I know you freed every soul I asked you to.”

His eyes flash darkly. “I did it for _you_. I wanted you to be happy, because I wanted you—”

“You’d released Rose before we even made the deal. Don’t deny this,” she stops him, pressing a finger to his lips. “You released every soul I wished to be spared. You lessened every punishment I made a case for.”

“I did it all for you,” he snarls. “Because of you. So if you left, you can be sure we’d go back to our regularly scheduled hellfire and infinite suffering.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Maybe,” he smiles, “but I know you’re too good to risk it.”

“Are you sure?” Mallory presses her lips to his neck, teeth grazing his skin, drawing a hiss from his mouth.

The truth is: she doesn’t want to leave. It has less to do with her goodness, or her fear for the souls he’d damn if she left – and much more with the fact that selfishly, greedily, desperately

—she wants to stay.

She wants to stay in the Underworld.

With him.

And yet, the dread doesn’t let go of her, if anything – it grows worse with each moment that passes. No matter how close she presses into him, limbs tangling together and face burrowing into his neck like he’s the air she needs to inhale to survive— _please don’t go_ , he whispers into her hair, a litany, never-ending, and still—

—the hour comes.

 

-

 

In her dreams, she sees Gabriel.

“It is time,” he says, heavenly voice carrying the finality of a funeral bell, and Mallory fights the heaviness of her sleep, the sluggishness of her thoughts, at last tearing herself off the bed, dressed up and painted like a doll. She runs, walls and doors and corridors bending to her will.

In the garden, she falls to her knees, clawing at the ground.

And then—

Light pierces the canopy of smoke.

In the end, she has no choice at all.

 


	6. six for hell

 

 

 

> Look at that girl  
>  coming out of the ground  
>  like a little cherry chapstick vampire  
>  so clean she bleeds peach-juice.  
>  She’s not me.
> 
> — Catherynne M. Valente, A Silver Splendour, A Flame

 

 

**-**

 

**vi. six for hell.**

-

Above, there is only ash.

Coils of smoke swirl on the ground beneath Mallory’s feet, and there are no roots, no scraps, no bones.

No sun. No moon.

Nothingness.

She spins around, her hair whipping around her face, sizzling with static. The monochrome wasteland stretches ahead, endless. Tears spill down her cheeks. She shakes, feels her very bones vibrating beneath her skin. Her power, distressed, cracks about her, barely contained.

The wind blows, bringing with it a sulfurous stench that bites her eyes, her throat, her nostrils, claws its way into her bloodstream.

Hell has been more merciful.

“What happened?” Mallory asks, her voice breaking open, shattering like glass.

Gabriel stares down at her impassively. “What you were supposed to prevent.”

“How could I have prevented it? When you’d left me to rot Underground,” she cries, “how was I supposed to know? How was I supposed to help?”

“You knew what was coming,” he says. “And yet, you chose to stay Below.”

A violent shiver runs through her. She folds her hands into fists. “I couldn’t—”

“Don’t lie, Mallory,” he says harshly, “it is beneath you.”

His wings snap open. Feathery soft and magnificent, aglow with divine light.

Their brightness blinds her.

“It’s been months since you’ve had the power to come back. All you needed to open the gates was a sliver of the power you wield now. And _you knew that_.”

She wants to say that she didn’t, that she was kept there against her will, that she was weak and at his mercy, but Gabriel holds out his hand, capturing her words. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says. “You’re here _now_ , at last. And so you must do your duty.”

She lets out a choking breath, a mockery of a laugh. “What duty is left when the whole world is gone?”

“You must fix it.”

“ _How_?” She spreads her arms, as if to show the desolation of the earth in all its charred, hopeless glory. The ash clings to her wet cheeks. She can barely see.

Gabriel steps closer, bending his head over her. “Haven’t your friends left you directions? Haven’t you been given everything you’ll need?”

She remembers the maps, the lists, the spell. The great, terrible spell. One that cannot be performed.

“I’m not strong enough,” she whispers, sadness and shame tinting her voice.

Gabriel’s eyes soften. “Maybe you weren’t before, but you are now.” His gaze drifts to the wisps of darkness that have escaped her hold, swirling restlessly about her fingers. She reigns it back when she realizes her slip has gone noticed, cheeks flushing scarlet.

“But you must remember that you can never come home.” His wings shiver in the wind. “You’re tainted. Heaven cannot take you back.”

Mallory closes her eyes. The ash burns the inside of her eyelids. “It’s no longer my home,” she says at last.

His wings fold themselves, then extend slowly, in preparation for flight.

“Do not be afraid, little one,” he says lightly, “The Lord will guide you. I have faith in you—we all do. This is what you were put on this earth for.”

He rises off the ground.

“Gabriel!” Mallory calls out, and he inclines his head towards her, suspended above her in the air. The question burns in her throat, the unspoken words like acid on her tongue, begging to be said, begging to never be said. “Why did He leave me Below?” Her voice cracks. “Why did He let me stay so long?”

“There is a reason for everything He does. You must trust His judgement.”

The angel ascends.

Mallory is left on the ground.

 

-

 

She runs.

Her sadness becomes desperation, which in turn becomes anger – hot, crimson anger, that boils in her veins in place of blood, that propels her forward.

She blinks in and out of space, more shadow than girl. It’s almost too easy to let go and give herself to the wind, her power a current carrying her across miles upon miles of emptiness.

Nothing changes around her the further she goes. It feels like moving underwater, the toxic fog heavy and stifling, crawling over her skin ravenously. Sometimes from the corner of her eye she catches flashes of white on the ground; she never stops.

She knows the way; the maps are vivid in her memory. She imagines a red line dripping across the wasteland, from herself to her destination.

With each contaminated breath she draws into her lungs, the line grows shorter.

The reckoning is close.

 

-

 

The door to Outpost 3 cracks beneath her hands.

She steps inside, anxiety simmering in her bones. Her heels slip on the floor.

The air tastes like blood.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

And then: the horror.

 

-

 

The horror glares back. 

As far as her eyes can reach there are bodies – bloodied, shredded bodies, black-clad and red-painted, splattered across the room like pieces of meat; Mallory turns and the world swims, darkens at the edges.

Severed from their bodies, beloved faces stare at her with empty, dead eyes.

Zoe.

Queenie.

Coco.

Miss Cordelia.

Mallory screams.

 

-

 

She screams and screams, until her throat goes raw and her tears become blood. A wind picks up and the ground starts to shake; the air cracks with electricity as the darkness rises about her. Her power, in that moment, could split the very atoms apart.

In the midst of carnage, the horror smiles.

“I almost thought you’d never come,” the Antichrist says, dark eyes shining with mirth. He sits on one of the felled bodies languorously, legs crossed at the ankles.

“Devan.” She walks up to him, darkness swallowing her steps. She recognizes him from the pictures in the file, remembers his story. His whole life unfolds before her eyes, each choice, each terrible deed. All leading to this moment. The end of everything.

“Mal-lory,” he sings, lips stretching. “How do you like my work? Pretty cool, huh? The _Apocalypse_. Haven’t seen one like this in years!”

Terror eats at her bones, gnaws at her heart. She can’t feel any lifelines. As far as her senses can reach, there’s nothing left.

Everything is gone.

Everything is dead.

“My father is so proud of me,” he preens. “Must be a foreign concept to you.”

“What about your real father?” she asks, grasping at straws, “Timothy? Your mother, Emily? What do they think about how you’ve destroyed their world?”

The Antichrist huffs in disdain. “Nothing, I guess, since they’re _dead_.”  

“Dead?”

“Why so surprised?” He stands up to his full height, towering easily over her. His teeth glint sharply in the torchlight.

“They raised you. They loved you.”

He laughs. “And now behold—none of this bullshit mattered in the end. There’s only our purpose. But you’re probably not familiar with it, since you fucked yours up so badly—and either way, every good purpose needs a sacrifice, don’t you think?”

He turns around, breathes in the metallic smell of blood and death. “And it was all worth it,” he says, “to be able to feast on the witches—feel their power drain from their bones, their skulls cave in under my fingers.” He licks his lips. “And your face. Ah. I almost wish there were some left, so I could repeat this over and over—”

Anger overtakes her sorrow. It rises like a roaring thunder, alighting her numb body, snapping her back to life.

Her power rushes out in a barely controlled stream. Claws of darkness lock around Devan’s neck, green fire licks at his feet. It climbs higher, slowly, surely, and he thrashes in her hold, a croaking sound escaping his lips. She is so much stronger than him, his attempts at blocking her nothing more than pitiful tugs.

He doesn’t bleed ichor.

Like Mallory, he’s made of flesh and bone. He bleeds red.

“Do it,” he hisses, and his eyes flash green, and his lips curve into Lucifer’s smile, “my work here is done. I can’t wait to join my father and celebrate our victory. Regroup. Prepare. And then, who knows, maybe march on Heaven.”

“You’ll join him alright,” she says, tightening her hold. “In the core of the Earth where I locked him till the end of days.”

The feeling of déjà vu overcomes her, the bindings of reality wavering at the edges.

“Do it,” he repeats, baring bloodied teeth at her, “kill me. I’ll die with the satisfaction of seeing you fail.”

She feels lightheaded. Her power thrums in her veins.

“You think there's only winning and losing, success and failure,” she says, and her voice sounds unfamiliar to her ears. “But failure is when you've lost any semblance of hope.”  

“There’s no one left, Mallory,” he sneers. “There is no hope for you anymore.”

“This is where you’re wrong,” she whispers. And she lets him fall to the floor.

The empty eyes of her loved ones seem to gaze into her soul, challenging. Mallory steels herself. She will fix them. _She will fix everything._

She grabs a fistful of his hair and tugs.

 

-

 

The cold water swallows her whole, her clothes a shroud, pulling her under. “Balneum infinitum. Dona salui conductus,” she chants until water fills her lungs, until the tub brims with darkness. Until reality shatters.

“Tempus Infinituum.”

And like in her dreams, Mallory drowns.

 

-

 

The Campbells live in a quiet neighborhood; their house is modest but well-kept, exactly like every single one of the other houses lining the street.

Mallory exits her car stiffly. She’s carried a ghost of pain with her to the past – a terrible soreness in her throat, a strain of muscles. Her nose still seems to be filled with the smell of sulfur.

But her body is younger, fuller. Her hair is longer. She wears a flower-patterned pink dress. There is no tiara sitting atop her head.

Across the street, a man stands mowing his lawn, whistling a tune she doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t seem bothered by the murder of crows gathering above them.

Mallory tears open the Campbells’ door.

She knows she cannot waver – a moment of hesitation could cost her her life, could set the whole meticulous plan ablaze – but the sight that greets her at the door of Devan’s room still stops her in her tracks.

In that instant: three things happen at the same time.

Emily Campbell screams and throws herself in front of the crib.

Timothy Campbell lunges to the bedside table and grabs a lamp, then shoves it in Mallory’s direction in a vaguely threatening manner.

And Devan Campbell, who’s sitting primly in the crib, coos and waves his tiny hand, dripping with blood.

Mallory feels faint.

“Who are you?” Emily calls to her, panicked eyes darting from the intruder to the door of the closet. “What do you want?”

“It’s not what you think it is,” Timothy adds harshly.

Mallory draws back as if scalded. She whirls around and rushes to the living room, searching for something, anything—

She grabs a newspaper.

April 3rd, 2015.

_No. No, no, no, no—_

She was so careful not to let herself go too far back, but still far enough to catch him before his rise to power. He should be a _teenager_.

And yet, she remembers. The file the witches left her – the Devan section said he was born in 2012.

 _Impossible_.

She turns back. Back to the frightened, protective parents, back to their child, wide-eyed and curly-haired, too young to distinguish between right and wrong. Too young to make a choice.

She can’t kill this child.

The realization has a solemn finality to it; more so, as it is blindingly clear now that she can no longer carry out the plan.

She cannot acknowledge the stirrings of relief simmering in her heart.

“It’s okay,” she tells them, holding her hands in front of her, a gesture of goodwill, “You don’t have to be afraid.”

There are many ways of fixing things. To fix doesn’t mean to destroy. She can still defeat Lucifer, without spilling any more blood.

No one else has to die.

She releases a wisp of her power, lets the shimmering light fold into a halo about her. The Campbells gaze at her, awe-struck, disbelieving. The lamp falls from Timothy’s hand.

Mallory makes herself smile; a soft, reassuring curl of trembling lips. “I’m going to help you.”

 

-

 

It is a warm day, smelling of springtime. Tulips are in bloom, bright splotches of red and yellow against the green of the meadow. The wind blows droves of petals into the air; they tangle in Mallory’s skirts, catch in her hair. The bees buzz around her, busily darting from flower to flower. Not far ahead, apple trees bloom; like blushing brides, pink on white.

It is so hard to believe they’re alive.

The sun warms her skin. It still feels too bright outside, her eyes so used to the darkness she is blinded without the sunglasses perched on top of her nose. The world is an array of masterful strokes of color, vibrant and harmonious; a paysage of beauty that soothes her weathered soul.

She traces the petals with her fingers, turning yellow into blue, into purple and orange, a rainbow of colors locked in one beautiful flower, perfectly unique, unlike any other.

At last, she lets herself breathe.

When the ground cracks at her feet, she is not ready. In that moment, she doubts she ever will be again.

The ground cracks and caves in, darkness spilling from the cavern; and from the darkness the Lord of the Underworld emerges.

Her heart clenches at the sight of him – an instant of longing – but it’s gone as soon as it appears, drowned in a blaze of inexorable anger.

“You,” she spits out; a viper, unlike herself. Yet Michael doesn’t draw back, his eyes don’t widen; he stares at her levelly, tall and unmoving, a foreign being, blue-pale skin and soft hair resting upon his shoulders, unruffled by the blowing wind.

“Yes, me,” he says at last. “I came to congratulate you on a job well-done. Splendid work, sparrow,” he extends his arm with a flourish, as if to encompass the picture of brimming life around them, “it’s as if nothing ever changed.”

“How dare you—”

“And seeing how everything is running smoothly again,” he continues unperturbed, “I’m here to bring you home.”

Mallory finds herself struck speechless, unable to process his words. Her fury pulsates in her veins, almost a living thing in its own right. It’s a red blaze, a ticking bomb. She can barely see.

“How dare you.” She rips the glasses off her face and casts them to the ground. He notes her reddened eyes, the shadows underneath them. Still, he says nothing. “You lied to me. You lied to me about the most important thing in my life.”

There is a moment of silence when she gathers her thoughts, when she tries to reign in her sudden anger. There was no time before to contemplate how the Apocalypse really came to be, no time in her desperate plunge into the past to consider Michael’s involvement. She’s aware now that somehow, somewhere deep inside her heart, glimmered a hope that he was not complicit; somehow, he was not to blame.

Yet he doesn’t deny it.

“You knew what was happening,” she says, watching his face for cracks, for signs of remorse. “You knew my sisters, my family – the ones I loved the most in the world – were dying. That the whole world was going down in flames. Billions of people suffered and died. You knew, you saw it all as it was happening,” her voice breaks, and it hurts, hurts so much, “and you kept it from me. So that I wouldn't be there to save them; the one thing that _I was created to do_.”

His face doesn’t move. Nothing human shows.

Mallory is barely aware of the darkness slipping from her hold. It curves around her feet, around her fingers, soft and tempting like a lover’s touch. Begging to be used. “All those times you told me to keep away, to _rest_ – it was to keep me from knowing what was happening, wasn’t it? You _made_ me _forget_ ,” she chokes on those words, remembrance as sudden and unforgiving like a heart attack. “And here I was, thinking whatever you did was out of care. I actually thought you wanted to spare me the pain.”

She wants to laugh but fears she won’t be able to hold back the tears if she starts.

“You knew I was selfish,” Michael says, lips curling down, “and cruel. I never pretended to be anything else.”

“Yes, you did!” she howls, feeling like a wounded animal, with a gaping hole where her heart used to be, “you made me believe you were someone worth loving. But I was wrong.”

His blue eyes flash. She watches as a muscle jumps in his jaw, a sign of anger she hates she still recognizes.

“You can’t blame me for wanting you to stay,” he says. “I didn’t lie when I told you how much I need you Below. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” He pauses. “I still can’t.”

This time she does laugh. It sounds bitter, raw. “Do you really think I will go with you after everything you’ve done? I could never trust you again. The amount of suffering you’ve caused is unforgivable. You are a _monster_.”

“Mallory—” he starts, but she doesn’t allow him to finish.

“You’re more of a monster than the Antichrist – because unlike him, you actually had a choice.”

He grits his teeth. “This conversation has grown tedious,” he says sharply. “We’re leaving _now_.”

Mallory doesn’t step back. Instead, her power extends itself, a grey made out of divine light and the darkness of death; it forms a barrier between them. One even he cannot breach.

“No.”

She can see his composure slipping, his calm being shed like a snake sheds his skin. He is now what he’s always been – a terrible, impatient creature, ruled by his passions, his greatness stemming from darkness and suffering. He reaches out for her but it’s no use. She will not have him.

“Mallory,” he warns, and he’s terrifying in his anger. “You will stop this right now.”

“ _No_. I'm not done here yet,” she tells him, but he will not hear her. He smashes at the wall between them, magic sizzling under the force of his anger. Still, it stands. “I will not go with you.”

“You will not deny me,” he roars, and heavy dark clouds start gathering in the sky, covering the sun. A wind rises, making the trees shudder.

With barely a thought she forces him back into the darkness. She cannot bear the sight of him anymore, the face – once so dear to her – now brings only revulsion, is a picture of deceit. There is little hope that he will leave her alone, though; he never could let things go. And, it seems, neither could she.

She turns back, ignoring the way the Underworld seems to pull her under, or the taste of rotting fruit somehow still vivid on her tongue.

 

-

 

She goes back home.

Suspended at the threshold of the house by a mixture of hope and dread, she shivers despite the warm breeze. What if she changed more than they’d anticipated? What if this reality is so fractured, any more of Mallory’s interference will push it to collapse in on itself? What if her presence here leads to disaster?

Yet, as she raises her hand to press the bell, the door to Miss Robichaux’s Academy swings silently inward on its own.

There is no use for fear anymore.

 

-

 

And inside the familiar, pristine office of the Supreme, Mallory spins her tale. A freak, a lost cause, a descendant of greatness, a mother who abandoned her – all of them she’s heard before, all of them with a grain of truth to them. She demonstrates her power with careful grace; nothing flashy, nothing extraordinary. Yet the ease with which she performs the tasks doesn’t escape Miss Cordelia’s notice and she watches her with interest. But there is no recognition in her eyes.

After Miss Cordelia utters the words of acceptance—the grand, merciful welcome—Mallory, like a lost home-sick child, can’t help but throw her arms around the older woman; her fingers pressing into the cream silk of her blouse, face buried in her soft blond hair, smelling of freesias and _home_. Miss Cordelia returns the embrace, albeit timidly, drawing slow soothing circles into Mallory’s back. When they draw back, Mallory’s eyes glitter with tears.

“You have no idea how happy I am to become a part of your coven,” she says, and the weight resting upon her shoulders lessens somehow, “how much I needed it.”

Miss Cordelia smiles, and pats her hand. “This is what we’re here for, darling.”

 

-

 

She picks her old room, partly out of convenience, mostly out of nostalgia. It’s a tiny white rectangle, with windows looking out east, letting in the most light of any room in the building. She used to be like a starved plant, always leaning towards the sun, basking in its warmth; now, she is fragmented; a patchwork of her past and future selves – she must learn how to exist in the present.

Curtains made out of finest lace billow in the wind, inviting in the sweet smell of roses from Miss Cordelia’s garden; a small bed stands lonely by the wall. There is not yet a Coco on the other side of the wall, knocking out their secret codes.

It seems barren, but not for long. She will fill it with flowers and art, and the room will spring to life; and hopefully so will she.

Downstairs—the sitting rooms, the classrooms—they all look the same. The girls, too, are unchanged; they carry the softness of the time before the prophecy, before the Antichrist had been foretold; before his grudge against their kind had sent them running for their lives, barricading their doors. Instead, they flourish in the public’s acceptance and the safety of the coven.

They are kind to her, unsuspicious, despite her obvious concealment of the true extent of her powers. Sometimes she slips, performing a spell that would take years of training, sometimes she mentions a story she hasn’t been told yet. But in a coven, everything can be explained.

She is so hungry for their presence, for their vibrance, for their life. In dreams, their empty eyes haunt her, the acrid taste of blood and guts suffocating like a noose around her neck. In dreams, blood pools out from their slashed throats. _Why did you forsake us? Why didn’t you come on time? Why did you let us die?_ In dreams, she hears them say the words they never got the chance to say before they were stolen away.

She can’t bear it.

And so in wakefulness, she finds that her sisters become her sun.   

She volunteers to help Zoe with her lessons, tending to the youngest witches who follow her around like flocks of baby birds; tags along with Queenie on various errands, drinking overpriced milkshakes and mastering the art of bargaining (it does, however, more often than not involve magic). And in the greenhouse, she helps Miss Cordelia.

As the days grow warmer and their acceptance becomes trust, and then the promise of something more, Mallory can no longer pretend not to see—although carefully rare—the looks of absentminded sadness, the poignant silences that at times cut through their days. All of which Mallory is all too familiar with.

In the end, there is no running away from what she is.

Hadn’t she promised herself she’d fix them? That she’d fix _everything?_    

So in the light of the full moon she lies down on the floor at the foot of her bed; she stretches her arms like an angel spreads its wings.

She closes her eyes and descends.

 

-

 

It shocks her, how easy it is to fall back into the darkness; its comforting warmth folds around her like a satin blanket, like a second skin. It’s even easier to find the personal hells she needs, despite the way the hallways meander and loop in those most cursed parts of the Underworld.

Mallory moves, quick like a shadow, between one blink of the eye and the next.

And still, someone follows.

With her hand pressed to the door of Madison’s hell, she makes herself turn around.

The Mazikeen stare at her with those watery mismatched eyes of theirs, giddily exclaiming, “Mistress!” when she allows herself a smile of fondness, despite her hurry.

Mallory presses her index finger to her lips. “You must not tell your Master about this.”

“But Mistress—”

“Are you not coming back?”

“You must come back—”

She quiets them again, weariness settling back around her. “Not yet, Maze. You must be patient.”

“But the Master—”

“The kingdom needs _you_ —”

She pushes the door open and slips inside the retail hell, frustration rising as the demons start to praise her. There’s no use, she thinks furiously, the Underworld must pay for its Master’s crimes. She will not let herself be tricked into diminishing herself ever again.

She grabs Madison, and leads her out.

One more stop.

 

-

 

Returning to the world of the living is hard; it is like trying to break the surface of the water, while your pockets are full of stones. Still, she carries them back, the three of them, coughing and choking and sputtering for breath but _alive_. They’re alive.

Mallory hadn’t known them, hadn’t been a part of the coven during the time when they’d still existed; she wasn’t prepared for the difference their presence would make.

There is a flurry of movement, a moment of tense, spell-bound disbelief, and then—

—then everyone is screaming, and rushing forward, and Miss Cordelia is holding Madison so tight, despite the younger woman’s half-hearted protests, and then—she moves, as in a trance, to touch Misty’s face with trembling hands, and then her arms wrap themselves around the laughing witch, and the Supreme is weeping; wretched, heartbreaking sobs that shake her whole body, that shake both of them, so wrapped up in each other, resembling one inseparable being. Mallory has never seen the calm, collected Miss Cordelia this way before. Not even when she descended into Hell, to bargain for Mallory’s life. Seeing her as she is now, it stings, just a little bit, like a rose thorn catching your finger; but she crushes the unwanted jealousy as soon as it surfaces.

And at the other side of the Hall, Madison is gathering Queenie into a hug, an awkward tangle of limbs; despite sarcastic quips it lasts a long moment, a testament to how touch-starved Hell makes you (Mallory crushes that thought, too). When they let go, Madison turns to Zoe, and they gaze at each other for a while, a sea of unspoken words of hurt and resentment and longing and affection; then Zoe extends her hand and they touch, tentatively, a peace offering, fingers intertwining, and Mallory averts her eyes, feeling like an intruder to something so deceptively mundane and yet carrying a weight of intimacy that makes blood rush to her cheeks.

The sun rises. The younger witches spill into the Great Hall, buzzing like excited bees, feeling the new magic thrum in the walls of the Academy. Life continues, but brighter, louder, saturated with love.

They ask, but this is something she cannot share. She tells a story about a debt (half true), about family connections (despicable ones). She is nothing more, nothing less than them. Please believe her.

Yet there is Misty, calling her an angel.

And she watches Mallory from a distance, more often than not tucked safely in Miss Cordelia’s embrace, and Mallory knows the swamp witch can feel her connection to the dead, the corruption of her light. But Misty doesn’t mention it to anyone. And she chooses to love her anyway.

 

-

 

There’s a commotion in the Ancestral Room, Mallory notes as she exits her last class, the youngest of her pupils spilling out of the room in a blur of black lace and flying ribbons. She waits until all of them have left before locking the door and following the noise, feeling dread creep up her spine. The joyous hum of power in her veins—induced by the levitation she’s been demonstrating, a feeling she always gets after using magic in such a pure, non-invasive way—dies down, and her senses sharpen again, every nerve in her body alert and waiting.

As she enters the Ancestral Room, she registers three things.

There is no panic, for one.

No blood, either.

There is, however, the Devil—sprawled out on the settee, long burgundy-clad legs crossed nonchalantly, a pleasant smile playing on his lips. Sipping tea.

Zoe sits across from him, straight and prim, watching him with veiled suspicion. Miss Cordelia stands by her side, one hand resting on the back of her chair; strong and authoritative, she considers him like she would any threat; no hint of recognition shows on her face. And why should it? In this reality, she never made a deal with him.

Mallory walks across the room, noticing the rest of the witches, particularly Madison and the way her red lips curl alluringly, blowing out coils of smoke. Misty stands the furthest away from him, her back to the wall, visibly shaking. 

Now she’s had enough.

“There you are,” Michael croons, the first one to notice her arrival. His eyes flash with promise—of what, she fears to consider—and the intensity of him, even at the distance, makes her light-headed. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long, my dear—I would have _died_ of boredom had your kind friends not offered to keep me company.”

She recognizes a thinly veiled threat in his voice, although to anyone else he must sound perfectly cordial. Mallory makes herself move closer, despite the instinct to run that all but paralyses her limbs.

Miss Cordelia’s eyes finally leave Michael and turn to Mallory, quizzical and, could it be?, worried. “Who is he, Mallory?” she asks.

“Her husband,” Michael says before she even manages to open her mouth, a wicked smile on his lips.

Madison scowls at her. “Aren’t you a little too young to be married?”

“ _Ex_ -husband,” Mallory bites out.

The room falls into a tense silence. She doesn’t dare meet anyone’s eyes.

“Fair game then,” Madison throws, brightening.

Michael taps his fingers against the armrest of the settee in impatience. Mallory hates the way she knows all his quirks, the way she can still predict his moves, despite their time apart. “Come now, love,” he says, and she shivers, “you know very well that the catholic church does not permit divorce.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks, hands curling into fists at her sides.

He stirs in his seat. “I came to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“I disagree.” He fixes her with a stern look. “Do you know how rude it is to drop by for only a few moments, grab some… _things_ ,” his gaze trails briefly over Misty and Madison, “and then leave without saying a word? I’m hurt.”

“Listen… Michael,” Madison says, pursing her lips, “she clearly doesn’t have her priorities straight. I say don’t bother with _her_ —”

“I won’t leave before we talk,” he says, ignoring Madison completely, his eyes never leaving Mallory’s. She knows he’s bluffing—the Underworld’s hold on him is too strong to allow him to tarry Above too long—but she can see how much his presence upsets Misty, the way Zoe’s lips are set in a thin, irritated line. He violates their peace, disrupts their harmony; he is like rot, spoiling everything he touches. And she cannot allow it to continue any second longer than absolutely necessary.

She extends her hand. She tries to hide how furious she is, and how that fury threatens her control; how her power rises like a tide inside her, recognizing his own, how it’s begging to be set free and join its counterpart. “Come on, then,” she says. “The sooner we get it over with, the sooner you’ll be gone from my sight.”

He stands up, a sharp, predatory smile on his face. His fingers drift to her outstretched hand and curl around her wrist, hot and tight, feeling her pulse hammer beneath his touch. The shock of his skin against hers is like a thousand stars exploding, and it takes everything she has in her to keep herself planted to the ground, to not fall down like a broken doll.

“Mallory,” Miss Cordelia calls out, barring their way. The lines at the corners of her eyes deepen with worry. “Will you be alright?”

Zoe stands up then, feet slightly apart, fingers flexing at her sides. The warrior stance.

Mallory stills, taken aback; and then she imagines how they must look—her in that girlish white dress, a tea rose behind her ear, her past—current—body barely eighteen years old; and he—dark and feral, towering over her with his hungry, devouring eyes and sharp smile; barefoot as she is now, the top of her head barely reaches his shoulder.

What they see is an innocent child, being preyed upon by a villain; only he knows the truth of what she’s done and who she really is.

Still, the thought that they worry, that one word of discomfort from her would have them risking their lives to protect her and banish the very Devil into the pit he came from—it alights her with fondness and gratitude so strong her eyes gloss over with tears.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she says, as lightly as she can, willing her voice not to crack, “he’s perfectly docile.”

Michael snaps his teeth, and she rolls her eyes, tugging him forward.

 

-

 

She presses her palm flat against the door, humming a privacy spell; it spills from her fingers in a jet of golden sparks, climbing across the walls of the dining room she’s dragged him into, sealing them away.

Then, at last, she lets herself seethe.

“You have no right!” It takes her breath away, seeing him stand in front of her, smug and unapologetic, despite everything he’s done to her. “You have no right to barge into my life, to harass _my family_ —"

The side of his mouth curls up into a snarl. “I have every fucking right.”

“Oh really?” she says in a low voice, taking a step towards him. “Since when? Since you’ve kidnapped me and held me prisoner? Or since you’ve kept from me that everyone I loved died, that the _whole world_ died, keeping me in the dark out of your petty selfishness?”

“Since you’ve let me make my home inside you,” he hisses.

She grits her teeth. “Not one of my brightest moments, admittedly.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, grabbing her wrist again. She tries to tear herself away from him, but his grip is too strong. He brings them closer together, until the warmth of his body seeps through her dress, until her breasts brush against his velvet jacket. Suddenly she feels like her clothes are too tight, too confining, and it angers her even more. “I know you,” he whispers, “you don’t regret becoming mine. Or becoming Queen. You liked being in control, for once in your life.”

“Shut _up_ —”

“That’s why you stayed so long. You were tired of being a pawn. You were tired of being a good little girl, a puppet on a string, dancing to the tune they played for you—starve yourself, Mallory, lose yourself, Mallory, sacrifice yourself, Mallory—and here I was, the one person willing to give you everything you truly deserved. Do you really think I had the power to keep you Below without your consent? You had the power to bend reality—to reverse time. You could have torn the Underworld in half if you wanted. You stayed, because you wanted to, because you wanted—”

His words are poison, and it’s as if he bleeds her with every vile untruth that spills from his mouth. She thrashes in his hold like a wild thing, desperate to escape his lies. Her free hand draws back to strike him, but he catches it too, wrapping his fingers around both of her wrists, and now he has her, entire, in his hold.

“I hate you,” she whispers, head tipped back to look into his eyes.

Michael bends his head, lips brushing her forehead, even as she tries to twist away from him. “No, you don’t. You love me, just as I love you. That’s why you must come home with me.”

“No.”

His eyes flash with warning. “Stop this nonsense, Mallory. You know I’m not a patient being.”

“Then maybe you should work on that virtue.”

Suddenly he moves, and before she gathers her bearings she’s being lifted on top of the dining table. She hasn’t realized how uncomfortable it’s been, having to crane her neck to be able to have a conversation with him.

Michael still crowds her in, having stepped between her legs, insinuating himself into her space. He is too close, too big, too warm, and her body—despite her mind’s objections—has missed him too damn much. She tries to breathe evenly, calm her racing heart. It accomplishes nothing, when his fingers brush her thigh.

“This is the last time I’m asking nicely,” he says, velvet-soft and sweet as sin.

“The answer is still no,” she tells him, making her voice sound as pleasant as his own. “I just got my family back. I want to be with them—I want to see them thrive, and blossom, and _live_ , and I want to be there for them this time around. I want to see the seasons change. I want to help the young ones, the lost ones, I don’t want them to make our mistakes. I’ve lived two different lives—now I must use that to make this world a better place.”

She lifts her hand. The back of her fingers brush the sharp edge of his jaw. His eyes snap shut at her touch.

“And most of all, I still haven’t defeated the evil I was supposed to. So you see—I can’t go back. Not yet.”

Michael opens his eyes, his hand catching her wrist again. “When?” He puts so much yearning in this one word, it makes her shiver.

“I don’t know.”

His lips hover over hers, so close her breath brushes his skin. Mallory’s entire body trembles from need of him, and she knows her self-control is wearing dangerously thin.

“You could easily make me wait until you’re old and grey and at death’s door,” he whispers against her lips. “You could grant me your last hour, and then you’d be ripped away from me again when your soul ascended.”

It is a frightening thing, knowing your whole life is already set on a course, bound to lead to a certain destination; knowing nothing you can do can change it. It bothered her before, when the plans had been made without her consent. Now, when the choice has been hers, all she feels is peace.

“Maybe I will,” she says lightly, “but you don’t have to worry about that last part. I _will_ stay.”

He gazes down at her without comprehension. She moves her hand along his jaw, across his cheek, until her fingers tangle in his hair. “I still hate you,” she tells him, her nails pressing softly into his scalp, making him gasp, “I hate you so much it burns inside my chest, beneath my ribs; it’s like I can’t breathe when I look at you.” She swallows, her throat suddenly unbearably tight and dry. “But I’ve eaten the food of the dead, so I’m bound to join you, sooner or later. I cannot escape you forever.”

Michael draws back as if burned, his eyes wide and frantic. “No,” he says harshly.

“But I did.” She laughs, and her voice is humorless, empty, a chime of broken bells. “I’d eaten the rotten pomegranate seeds, before Gabriel took me back to the surface and showed me the wasteland the Earth had become in my absence. Before I realized that you'd known the world was ending and you'd still kept me away, in a glass cage of lies and dreams and sin.”

“You realize they won’t let you into Heaven now,” he says shallowly, “that when you die, your soul will be barred from home. It will be bound to Hell forever.”

“It seems a fitting punishment for my crimes.” She doesn’t tell him that she no longer thinks of Heaven as her home. He doesn’t deserve to know. “Either way, you can now rest comforted knowing that you will have your way in the end.”

“Mallory—”

She slips down from the table and shakes her head. “All I want right now is to live in peace with the people I love. I know my days of freedom are numbered. But I’m not in Hell yet, so please, spare me the suffering of your presence.”

Her words are made to cut to the bone; and they do. His face cracks, shatters like a broken mirror, cursing her for seven years. Mallory closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, he’s gone.       

 


	7. seven for the devil, his own self

 

 

 

 

 

> I asked him for it.  
>  For the blood, for the rust,  
>  for the sin.  
>  I didn’t want the pearls other girls talked about,  
>  or the fine marble of palaces,  
>  or even the roses in the mouth of servants.  
>  I wanted pomegranates—  
>  I wanted darkness,  
>  I wanted him.
> 
> — Daniella Michalleni, Persephone Speaks

 

 

**-**

 

**vii. seven for the devil, his own self.**

-

 

“Devan, stop.”

The boy’s hands dig into Mallory’s arms, his chubby little fingers like iron nails pressing into her skin. She manages to wrestle him back into his crib and he curls himself into a ball in the corner of it, pushing his thumb into his mouth. His dark eyes are glossed over, wide and innocent.

And yet, bruises bloom purple and angry beneath Mallory’s sleeves.

Emily watches them from the doorway, under the cross Mallory instructed them to hang there. There is power in symbols, in rituals. You don’t have to believe in them for it to be true.

“Do you pray like I asked you to?”

The woman nods, her dark hair bouncing around her face with the motion. “When he wakes up and before bedtime,” she says, and there is sincerity in her voice; Mallory can believe the woman really does want her son to get better, wants him to escape his cursed destiny, wants him to survive.

Mallory dips her fingers in holy water. “And your husband?” There is a curious absence of Timothy Campbell in the house.

Emily’s gaze drops to the floor. “He’s working.” She stays quiet for a moment, teeth pressing into her lower lip. “We had to make sacrifices, so that one of us would always be home with Devan.” Hard. Too hard. Hard enough to draw blood. “But it’s getting better. I know he’s getting better.”

Mallory leans over the crib. She puts her wet finger to the boy’s forehead, presses a cross into his skin.

Devan screams.

 

-

 

Summer comes, and with it a blazing heat. The meadows redden, and the air becomes stifling, thick; it is difficult to breathe outside the charmed Academy. The very walk to the greenhouse is torture; clothes stick to Mallory’s skin, hot and abrasive; she wishes she could disappear from her body, fly into the skies.

The younger girls have left for their well-earned holiday—which has made the house stand too quiet, too empty. There is nothing left to do but dream.

And in dreams, the Underworld calls to her.

“Mistress.”

“Mallory.”

“ _Wife._ ”

She wakes up, sweat trailing down her back, between her breasts—at the edge between sleep and awakening, it almost feels like a lover’s touch.

Her home reaches for her with its claws of shadows, with its quiet darkness; and in the night, in a moment of weakness, she admits to herself how much she misses it, how much she craves to be whole again.

But then, as it does, morning comes.

And Mallory packs a bag.

 

-

 

She drives for three days, a woman possessed. She looks a fright—in the dingy restroom by a gas station in Phoenix, a scratched mirror shows her a red-cheeked girl, too young to be on the road on her own, with matted dirty-blond hair sticking to her neck, perspiration glistening on her face. This won’t do, she knows, she will have to fix herself before the journey is over, but her restlessness doesn’t allow her to stop. She must outrun her ghosts.

When she stands at the register, paying for gas and a couple of energy bars that will make her dinner, she thinks she sees a flash of blond hair outside, then a glint of sharp teeth as she makes her way back to her car. Her hands itch to perform a summoning.

A man leans against the gas pump by her car, whistling an off-key rendition of _Money for nothing_. His hair is black, sticking in every direction; his eyes, a brown so light it seems almost gold. The cuffs of the sleeves of his shirt are speckled with red.

“Good day, Missus,” he calls after her in a thick southern accent, as she hurriedly passes by. The memory of him fades away like so much dust as soon as she turns away.

Before she reaches Beverly Hills, she makes herself presentable in a motel by the road. Freshly washed hair and a powdered face make her a different person; she puts on her sun necklace, too, her heart skipping a beat as she traces the metal with her fingers. Familiar, well-loved. Like the face of the woman she will soon see.

 

-

 

“I don’t understand,” Coco says pleasantly, but with a high dose of apprehension, as she hands Mallory a dripping cosmo. They’re in one of her father’s mansions, sitting comfortably at the edge of the pool, with their feet buried to the knee in the water. The black lace of Mallory’s dress sags wet and heavy and cold around her legs. It’s bliss.

“It’s simple, really,” she tells her, taking a sip of the offered cosmo and curling her toes in pleasure. “You saved your brother’s life, didn’t you? And there is no explanation for it—none of you have known before about his celiac disease. I think it speaks for itself. That’s divination, all right.”

Coco lets out a disbelieving laugh. They sit side by side, their shoulders brushing, the sweet smell of Coco’s perfume filling Mallory’s nostrils. “I call that super fortunate coincidence. Hardly enough to call myself a witch.”

“Okay, then,” Mallory says, her lips stretching against her will, and holds out her cosmo, “how many calories in my glass?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Focus.”

Coco furrows her brows and fixes her gaze on the drink. “125.”

Mallory smiles. She passes her the phone. “Now check.”

“146,” Coco says at last, lips curving down in a pout. “Not even close.”

“Yes, but I’ve already drunk some from my glass. So—I can assure you that what’s left is exactly 125 calories.”

Coco bursts out laughing and Mallory, no matter how hard she tries, can’t help but join her. It feels so good, so _safe_ , to be with her best friend again, to hear her voice and see her smile, and know that she’s alive and not—

“That’s a shitty power to have,” Coco says, gazing down into her own glass, “now I’m having regrets about the amount of these little bitches I’ve already chugged down.”

Mallory rolls her eyes. “I’d say it’s useful.”

“Not like those girls on tv. Your friends, right?” She tilts her head back, facing the sun. “Do you really know Madison Montgomery? I heard she’s a massive bitch.”

“You’ll find that out yourself when you meet her.” For a second, Mallory’s heart stops beating, and she bites her lip in trepidation. “Because you’ll come with me to the Academy, won’t you?”

She dips her fingers in the water, barely breaking the surface. She hums under her breath, and the water rises, dolphin-shaped, into the air, then—after a flick of her fingers—collapses back into the pool. Coco watches it in astonishment.

“If you teach me how to do that, then sure.”

“I’ll teach you anything you’ll ask me,” Mallory swears solemnly.

Coco extends her hand, a huge smile lighting up her face. “Then we have a deal.”

And Mallory can breathe again.

 

-

 

They stay in Beverly Hills for two more days, for Coco to make all the necessary preparations for her move—which include: a shopping spree, a visit with her solicitor, and a farewell party with all of her socialite friends.

Music pulses in Mallory’s veins as she moves through the crowds of dancing people, loud and vibrant and so very, very alive—she sways with the beat, eyes half-closed, lets pairs of disembodied arms wrap themselves around her waist, lets them spin her round and round until peals of joyous laughter spill from her lips.

Lights flash in different colors, like jewels tucked into the crowns of palm trees. A pleasantly cool breeze tangles her hair when she escapes the dancefloor, the crowd thinning the farther she walks from the pool.

Mallory makes her way to the waiter carrying a tray of red margaritas. She barely manages to step to the side when a woman crashes into him, sending the drinks flying to the floor, the glass shattering to tiny pieces on the tiles.

“Oops,” the woman giggles, shaking her blond head as she steadies herself with her hand propped on the horrified waiter’s chest. “Look at me, I’m such a klutz!”

Mallory picks up the fallen tray. She wonders if reassembling the glasses in such a public way would be too much exposure, but then the woman wrestles the tray from her hands and tosses it to the side. “You’re probably better off not drinking these, anyway.” Her golden eyes twinkle with mirth.

Recognition tugs at Mallory’s mind, insistent like a word stuck on the tip of one’s tongue. “Do I know you?” she asks.

“Sure, you do,” the woman says with a wink, “if you watch a lot of home videos.”

Before Mallory manages to ask her anything else, she disappears into the crowd.

Coco catches her soon after, looping her arm through Mallory’s own, and leads her to a quieter spot.

“I’m sorry about all this,” she says with a scowl, “I swear they wouldn’t leave me in peace if I left without saying goodbye.”

Mallory smiles fondly, tipping her head back to look at her, so much taller than her in those 5-inch heels. “I’m actually enjoying myself a lot.”

Coco gasps. “About that—I was looking for you for a reason.” She looks at her in worry. “Please tell me you didn’t drink any of the raspberry margaritas. Caitlin told me someone spiked them—her friend had to be carried upstairs after having one of those—I swear, when I find out who did this, I’m going to pulverize his fucking balls.”

“I—” Mallory frowns, the night folding and unfolding in her memory like a deck of cards, “I think someone spilled those drinks before I got the chance to try them.”

“Thank God.” Coco drags a hand through her hair. “I’m gonna ask for tequila now. And pour it for everyone myself.”

When she leaves, Mallory tries to return to that moment of shattering glass and red spilling to the floor—but all she gets is a flash of gold and a sense of familiarity, like puzzle pieces falling together.

 

-

 

Back in New Orleans, life goes on. They fall into a comfortable routine, as Coco joins the classes, helps the older witches with their chores, and—as promised—in each spare moment, Mallory indulges her with flashier, more advanced spells.

Voodoo shopping with Queenie brings them into the back streets of the city. They cross through the forgotten cemeteries, under the canopies of weeping willows; the first shop they visit is in an old grave house, the second in the crypts of an abandoned church. Coco’s excitement is contagious and Queenie grins conspiratorially, brandishing the bags with their questionable purchases with little decorum as they return to the city center.

A black cat crossing their path doesn’t dampen their spirits.

The Devil does.

Mallory waves her friends away, her hackles rising at the sight of him; he stands there so unruffled, clad in a full suit—waistcoat and all—despite the heat, not a hair out of place. He looks at her with mild curiosity, even a hint of delighted surprise—as if seeing her is nothing more than a fortunate coincidence.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, barely stopping herself from crossing her arms over her chest like a dismayed child. It truly hasn’t been _that_ long since the last time she’d seen him. She shouldn’t be feeling such desperate longing, her hands shouldn’t be itching this badly to touch him.

“Working,” he says with a shrug.

“Here? In the city where _I_ live?”    

He shrugs again, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. “It’s as good a place as any. More than enough people to tempt to their doom; more than enough idiots willing to make a deal.”

“If you think you can—”

“You’re sweating,” he cuts her off, voice suddenly growing perfectly neutral, “are you sick again?”

Mallory blinks, thrown off-guard. “It’s summer.” He keeps looking at her blankly, clearly waiting for her to elaborate. “Of course I’m sweating. It’s ridiculously hot. Can’t you feel it?”

As he shows no sign of discomfort, she very much doubts it.

“Why do you insist on staying here if it’s so dreadful?” he asks with a scowl. “I can’t imagine putting myself through all of this inconvenience of my own volition. You’re better off participating in the eternal judgements. At least that’s _fun_.”

Mallory raises her eyes to the sky. Unfortunately, no lightning strikes him. (Or her.)

At last, she grits her teeth. “Come on,” she says, turning on her heel. “I’ll show you.”

They walk a short way down the street until she leads him into a small turquoise-painted milk bar. The bell at the door pings cheerfully as they enter, completely at odds with Michael’s frosty demeanor.

She makes him sit in one of the corner booths, the seat too small to accommodate his long legs. Again, she is struck—while standing in line to place her order—by how out of place he seems in her world; he reminds her of a baroque piece of art, velvet and gold and angelic, too exquisite, too _unreal_ for mortal eyes.

“I got you a chocolate one, but if you prefer strawberry we can switch,” she tells him matter-of-factly, as she places the milkshakes on the table between them.

Michael looks at her quizzically. “What the fuck are these, love?”

“Milkshakes,” she says.

“Milkshakes,” he repeats slowly, staring down at the creamy concoction in his glass, the straw sticking vulgarly out.

Mallory, to her credit, does not roll her eyes. “You wanted to know why I insist on staying here, even if it’s so dreadful. This is why.”

“Because of _milkshakes_ ,” he repeats flatly, as if it’s a word in a language he’s learning for the first time.

“Because, after walking in that blazing heat outside, you get to come in here—into this lovely, air-conditioned place, and order a delicious, cold milkshake that tastes like actual heaven. Because the lady who makes them has been working here for over 40 years, like her mother, and grandmother before her—and she always has something nice to say to you while taking your order, no matter the day. Because friends and families come here to spend time together, because kids run here after school and spend the last of their pocket money on the shakes—and they always get fries for free.”

There is a look of utter bewilderment on Michael’s face. “I cannot even begin to try to understand your logic,” he says.

She takes a sip of her shake and moans delightedly around her straw. Michael makes an incomprehensive noise.

Mallory hides her grin behind her hair as she watches him reluctantly try his drink. Then he pulls his straw out and puts it into her own glass, audaciously taking a sip from there, too. She waits for a reaction, but to her disappointment he keeps his face carefully blank—which shouldn’t surprise her, really, since playing with her had always been his greatest amusement.

They sit in companionable silence then, cataloguing each other’s features, knees almost bumping under the table.

“I thought we agreed to stay away from each other for a while,” she ventures, tapping her fingers on the table to stop herself from reaching forward.

Michael ignores her. Instead, he switches their drinks.

“I prefer the strawberry,” he says pointedly, then slurps loudly.

 

-

 

Emily’s frantic eyes are still vivid in Mallory’s memory as she makes her way back from the Campbells’ house. Dark clouds have gathered in the sky, the air thick with a promise of rain. She drives too fast, too careless; her thoughts fixed on the little boy’s giddy laugh as he pinched her cheek, on his mother’s tense smile as she recounted his perfect behavior with well-practiced efficiency.

There is a flash of lightning; that second of blindness makes Mallory slow down enough to notice a man standing in the middle of the road, his arms raised as if to catch the drops of rain. She makes a sharp turn to the right, barely missing him; the screech of the tires as deafening as her raging heartbeat.

She jumps out of the car, shaking from head to toe. “Are you okay?” she calls to the man, rushing to his side.

He only smiles, white teeth flashing in a dark, handsome face. He’s wearing a grey suit, perfectly dry despite the falling rain. His eyes are golden. “Better turn left, Missus. With weather like that, I have a feeling there’s gonna be an accident ahead.”

Power tingles at her fingertips. He feels familiar, this stranger, hazy like a childhood memory, like a half-forgotten dream. The darkness inside her unfolds, recognizing its own.

“He,” she says, and the man’s golden eyes sparkle with laughter, “is in so much trouble.”

 

-

 

She is barely surprised when she finds Michael lounging on her bed once she finally enters her room at the Academy what seems like lifetimes later. She leans back against the door, gazing at him with weary eyes, too tired to fight. 

“This is atrocious,” he says, lifting Mallory’s battered copy of Pride and Prejudice he’s supposedly been reading, “I can’t decide which one of them is more of a boring, stuck-up bitch – Elizabeth _or_ Darcy. You call this entertainment? The only entertainment I’m getting from it so far is coming up with all the ways I’d like to kill them both.”

He takes up most of her tiny bed, stretched as he is on her pink flower-patterned comforter. He’s taken off his jacket, the sleeves of his black silk shirt rolled up to the elbows, his necktie loose – this being as casual as he ever gets.

“You’re missing the point,” she sighs, kicking off her shoes.

Michael makes a face. “What point _is_ there? I almost fell asleep reading it, and I don’t, as a rule, sleep, ever.” His blue eyes follow her across the room as she retrieves a bowl from her dresser, then five candles, and a variety of jars of herbs. She sets them all on the floor. “Though I must admit, you still surprised me with your choice of literature,” he continues. “I’d pegged you more for a girl who reads nothing but the Bible.”

Mallory’s movements still, and she looks at him with her brows furrowed. “All this time together and you had no idea what kind of books I like to read?”

He lifts his eyes to the ceiling. “I got to know you… in other ways.”

Mallory hums, as she begins filling the bowl with water. “If you must know, there’s no point reading something you already know in its entirety by heart.”

“You know the Bible by heart,” Michael says, slack-jawed.

She bows her head, hiding her smile, as she sets the water-filled bowl next to the candles and the herbs. “You’re pretty gullible for the Devil, don’t you think?”

Michael scoffs, setting the book back on the bedside table. “I was just making conversation. Isn’t it what couples do?”

“Ah, that reminds me,” she says, kneeling by the bed, her hand dangerously close to his knee. “Stop sending people to spy on me.”

“Leviathan is hardly people,” he drawls out. “And they’re not spying—just looking out.”

Air rushes out of her lungs. “Leviathan? _The_ Leviathan, one of the princes of Hell?”

“Last I saw, princess was more correct, but it’s all semantics, really.” He waves his hand dismissively. “You wanted me to stay away – so I did – but someone had to keep you out of danger.”

Mallory huffs. “I can take care of myself.”

“Sure you can.” He smiles obligingly, as if he doesn’t believe that for a second. “But the truth is, had it not been for Levi, you’d be dead at least five times over so far.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He moves to lay on his side, head propped up on one hand, knee brushing her fingers briefly. She feels a rush of warmth, just from that stolen touch.

“You do seem to have exceedingly bad luck,” he says, “or proficient enemies.”

“But Lucifer is locked up in the core of the Earth.”

“And he’ll stay there,” Michael says, his face darkening. “Still, his minions roam free. You must be careful.”

She sighs and closes her eyes. It’s so peaceful, with the calm, steady patter of rain against the window, the muted light of the bedside lamp painting apricot-colored shadows behind her eyelids. And Michael’s warmth, close enough to touch.

“Do you want me to leave?” His words snap her back to attention. His face is expressionless, the blue of his eyes darkened to a midnight sky.

“I was about to scry,” she tells him. She spreads the fingers of her right hand wide apart, lighting up the candles on the floor.

“I should get you a ring,” he muses, eyes following the movements of her hand. “It was remiss of me not to have given you a proper token of affection. It’s what husbands do, is it not?”

Mallory ignores him, levitating the candles to arrange them in the right order for her spell.

“I’ve never seen you use your magic before,” he says softly.

She spreads the herbs and the ash in a circle around herself. “If you keep quiet and don’t interrupt me, I’ll let you watch.”

She sits back on her knees, letting her mind relax. Michael’s presence is unobtrusive behind her, true to her request he makes no sound as she lowers herself into a trance. She focuses on the familiar house with its cream walls and linen curtains, focuses until that image unfolds on the surface of the water.

There’s Emily, covering the crosses hanging on the walls with black fabric, Emily pouring holy water down the drain, and filling the bottles with tap water instead. There’s Timothy – at last – disengaging a bloodied body of a dead rabbit from Devan’s little hands, hiding the body in a shoe box and taking it outside. And there’s Devan, bringing his chubby fingers to his mouth and licking the blood clean off.

“So that’s your Antichrist?” Michael’s voice breaks her focus, the image of the house slipping into the water. “I must say, you have your work cut out for you.”

Mallory drags a hand across her face, weariness setting heavily on her shoulders. “No matter what I do – I can’t stop his deterioration.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this – what she’s hoping to achieve; she cannot expect reassurance from him, or support; he has none to give. “I thought I was doing something wrong but the truth—I didn’t want to believe they truly were sabotaging me. That they don’t want him to be better, despite everything they’ve seen so far.”

Michael is quiet for a long time. She counts the beats of her heart, frantic, as if she’s ran a mile. “Have you considered the possibility that someone has got to them? Showing them another path?” he asks.

She shakes her head without a moment of hesitation. “It’s too soon. His power hasn’t developed enough to attract any of Lucifer’s followers.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers move in a stroke against the skin of her neck. “If they are sabotaging you, who says they haven’t hidden the extent of his powers, too?”

 

-

 

When she wakes up the next morning, there is a ring on her bedside table. It’s one she recognizes – she has seen it countless times on Michael’s pinky – a heavy, extravagant jewel, scarlet as hellfire itself.

There is a note next to it. _For my beloved_ , it reads, in a flamboyant script, _as I await your return_.     

Mallory bites her lip. The red stone seems to gaze at her tauntingly, like an eye of a demon, sent to torment her even Above.

She puts it on her middle finger.

And then turns to her bookshelf.

 

-

 

She reads on exorcisms, although she has promised herself she wouldn’t attempt one, except as a last resort. Devan is not exactly possessed—the fact that puts the legibility of the entire sacrament into question—not to mention that because of Devan’s very nature, the attempt would no doubt bring him excruciating pain, which Mallory would try her hardest to avoid.

Still, nothing else seems to garner any success.

She sees Leviathan again in the apple orchard—this time they’re wearing a body of a young girl, her hair strawberry-blond and pleated, freckles splattering every inch of her milk-white skin. “Careful,” she cautions Mallory, “they’re poisoned. Wouldn’t want you to fall asleep for a hundred years, Missus.”

Mallory sighs, setting down her wicker basket. “We must fix them then.”

They spend the whole afternoon healing the fruit—Mallory sanctifying, Leviathan reverting the curse. In the end, Mallory can’t help but feel charmed by her shape-shifting companion; she listens to stories of the Legions that Leviathan runs, and of the deep-sea creatures that are in their care. Mallory’s longing for the Underworld grows the more she listens; it’s a dull, empty feeling; a homesickness she hasn’t anticipated.

The book she’d left for Michael a week back has reappeared on her bedside table. She picks up her well-loved copy of Wuthering Heights, and slides out a note from between its first pages. The familiar ornate handwriting makes her smile despite her tiredness; she can easily imagine his dismayed face as he wrote the words, _I can now add moors to the list of things that put me to sleep_. Scribbled at the bottom of the note is: _please find me more action next time_.

She chooses Gone with the Wind.

 

-

 

There is a flurry of movement and excited chatter as the black-clad girls disband from the cars and Coco attempts to usher them all into a manageable group that can be herded in the right direction.

They’ve taken the youngest witches on a field trip to the forest, to allow them to practice their levitation skills in an unobstructed space and strengthen their connection to nature. It’s a common exercise, but the first one for this group of novices—they can hardly contain their excitement at the chance to finally test their abilities in the real world.

The girls run after Coco, who leads them to the clearing they’ve chosen for their lesson.

It is then that Zoe finally catches up to Mallory; she grabs her elbow and draws her close enough to hiss into her ear, “What the hell is _he_ doing here?”

Mallory’s eyes drift to Michael who’s unloading their bags from the trunk of one of the cars, a martyred grimace on his face. She shrugs. “We needed help carrying our supplies. He was available.”

The older woman gives her a look as if Mallory has suddenly grown a second head. “Really. Since when do we need help carrying anything?”

“Why do we have a butler then?”

Zoe looks to the sky. “It’s a matter of principle.”

“So is this.” Mallory turns around, following after the quickly departing girls. “I’m teaching him a lesson,” she adds as Zoe catches up with her.

“I don’t like him being around.”

It is understandable—one doesn’t need to know his true identity to be able to sense his nefarious nature—but Mallory makes sure he stays on his best behavior when in the company of the witches. “I’ve got it, I promise. He won’t do anything to hurt the girls.”

Zoe sighs. “It’s not the girls I’m worried about.”

Her concern touches Mallory. But it seems like whole ages have passed since the time Michael had been the scariest monster under her bed. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse than him.”

She doesn’t know if Zoe truly believes her but at the very least she seems to trust her enough that when Michael approaches, she leaves the two of them alone.

He lets go of the bags and collapses to the forest floor, throwing an arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun.

“When will you stop tormenting me, woman?” he asks with an exaggerated pout.

Mallory cocks an eyebrow. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I have become a witches’ lackey. Can you imagine a way to fall lower than that?”

She walks around him and starts unpacking their bags. “You could have said no.”

“I find that becomes increasingly difficult as time goes by.”

There is a pause, disturbed only by the trilling of birds and the whisper of wind-tangled leaves. Mallory goes on unpacking their supplies, distracting herself from the way his eyes seem bluer than the sky, or the way the sun lights up his skin, making him human, making him alive.

He calls her name, soft enough for her to pretend she hasn’t heard him; he tries again, this time with a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“Wife,” he finally says imperiously, and tugs at the hem of her skirt, pulling her towards him.

Mallory stumbles, off-balance, and he takes advantage of it and pulls her down to him. She falls in a heap into his lap, his body catching her fall. His arms wrap themselves around her in a hard, scalding cage, pinning her to his chest. She attempts to wrestle herself away, but he only hums against her neck, pulling her closer.

“Come now, sparrow,” he says, hot breath on her skin that sends shivers of excited pleasure down her spine, “no one’s here, you don’t have to keep pretending to hate me.”

She huffs indignantly. “I’m not pretending.”

“You’re starving me,” he says hoarsely, his lips pressed to her neck. He licks a hot stripe down, to the crook of her shoulder, and she nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Stop it!”

His arms, impossibly, tighten around her. “Hush. Let me have a little piece. A little taste of what I’m missing.” His teeth graze her flesh teasingly.

“You’re such a drama queen,” she sighs. But she can’t stop herself from tangling her fingers in his hair, the soft locks like silk in her hands. She wiggles a bit in his lap, making herself more comfortable, feeling his strong thighs tense against her bare legs. He hisses as she settles, lightly, teasingly, over his cock. In response to her movements, his teeth press harder into her neck.

“Someone will see,” she says half-heartedly, even as her hips unconsciously rock into him. She’s so frantic, so starved, too—for his touch, for his warmth, for his power, it seems almost surreal how long she’s managed to stay away.

One of his hands slips under her skirt, leaving a hot trail across her calf, up her thigh, over the curve of her ass. His lips leave her neck and finally find her mouth, a mix of sweetness and poison, of hunger and desperation, and she responds in kind, grasping for him as she would grasp for air.

His fingers slip under the waistband of her panties, to the wetness that’s already soaked through the fabric, and there’s a scream stuck in the back of her throat and she will die surely she will—

From afar, someone calls her name.

She tears herself away from him, short of breath and short of conviction. Michael falls back to the duff, swearing something vile.

“I’m coming,” she shouts back, and Michael swears some more.

 

-

 

“Tell me what I can do to help,” Michael says, face serious for once. He plays with one of her hairpins, the silver pin disappearing between his slender fingers like a magic coin.

This is a few weeks later, two, maybe three. She wishes—she allows herself to wish a lot these days, from small, insignificant daydreams to what might as well be miracles.

Mallory leans back, careful not to touch him, and closes her eyes. “You could take Devan back to the Underworld.”

He grimaces. “If he were possessed—I could. If he were a demon—I could.” The pin disappears in his folded fist. “But he’s human, isn’t he? Born human—I have no more right to him, than I have to you.”

She raises her eyebrows. He grits his teeth. “No more than I would have had before you cursed yourself, and before your darling Supreme sold your soul,” he says with a sneer.

“You don’t get to judge her,” she reminds him, what feels like a thousandth time already, which he answers with a roll of his eyes.

“What I mean is… my hands are tied. I could go there and scare the living shit out of him, but knowing his kind, he might even _like_ that.”

There is something touching about the way he seems to go out of his way to help her, despite knowing how futile all of the efforts would be. Deep down, she knows that there are only two choices left to her—two paths to take, one more difficult than the other.

But she was chosen for a reason, wasn’t she?

Whatever must be done, no matter how terrible—she has the power to do it.

So she will.

 

-

 

In the end, the exorcism goes as well as expected.

She returns bloodied, her eyes burning with unshed tears (she will not cry, she doesn’t deserve to cry after what she’s put this child through), the echo of Devan’s anguished screams mixed with Emily’s cries for mercy an excruciating cacophony in her ears.

She can barely breathe as she rushes through the Academy. Piercing pain spreads across her chest, like a gunshot wound, like a broken heart.

She collapses against the door of her room, trembling fingers closing around the key. Turning it around.

Michael looks up at her in apprehension, and as he notes the look in her eyes, the book he’s been reading slips from his fingers to the floor with a soft rustle of pages.

And in that moment, few things become clear to Mallory.

She’s waited too long. She’s pushed him away; to punish him or to punish herself – it is no longer clear, since the distance between them has become a physical ache and she’s been counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until she sees him again. She misses him—she admits it, now, with her heart torn open and her future set—and missing him is like an open wound, festering every time he’s forced to go back to his domain, leaving her empty and alone, miles apart from him.

She knows him. Knows that he’s a cheat, a knave, and a liar. Knows he has little empathy and completely lacks moderation; he dislikes the sun and prefers strawberry milkshakes, and if he had to choose he would only read Edgar Allan Poe. He doesn’t understand humanity, but values his subjects; and for some reason, he loves her, entire.

And she needs him, despite it all—and maybe because of it all, too. For he is hers, till the end of time.  

“Sparrow?” he asks lightly, eyes darting in growing alarm over her silhouette, as she starts removing her garments. Her dress falls to the floor, stained red and torn at the sleeves. Her shoes, her underwear, becoming a black puddle of lace and leather at her feet.

There is no moment of hesitation as she strides to the bed, crawling over his rigid body and clawing at the buttons of his shirt.

He grabs her wrists, holds them between their bodies, stilling her movements. “Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She tugs herself free and presses her hand to his mouth, muffling his next question. “Be quiet. No one can hear us.”

She rids him of his clothes, tearing them off with magic in her haste, and then she’s kissing him—hard and fast and desperate, biting too hard, her teeth catching on his lower lip, drawing blood. She soothes the sting with her tongue, trails her lips across his cheek, over the edge of his jaw, down to his pulse point as she reaches down with her hand to stroke his cock.

It makes her so hot, the scalding intensity of his gaze on her as she works him, up and down, the way he stiffens under her touch. True to her order he stays quiet, but his teeth are set painfully together, and he fists his hands in the sheets with enough force to make his knuckles go white.

She wills herself not to remember—what she’s done and what she’ll have to do—her mind set only on here, and now, and _oh_ , how long she’s waited for this.

And then she sits astride him, his cock stretching her, the sweet burn of it sending shivers of pleasure like electric shocks up her spine. He grunts between his teeth, hands flying to her hips, digging into her flesh hard enough to bruise.

She moves, slowly at first, relearning him and herself, the way she likes it, the way he shivers as she leans over him, melding their bodies into one.

Michael latches at her throat, tongue and teeth dragging over her skin, and she tangles her fingers in his hair, tugging at it lightly, moving faster, digging her nails into his scalp.

“I am a deathless being,” he rasps out against her neck, “but you might very well kill me.”

She gasps, moans, shakes, says the Lord’s name, and it’s blasphemy, and it’s a curse, as Michael’s hand reaches between them and he circles her clit with tantalizing intensity.

Her tiny bed shakes with their movements, a creaking, vulgar sound. Michael’s hips rise to meet her rhythm, and there is only pleasure and frantic need between them. When she comes it is like dying and being reborn and losing herself, only to rise as a woman changed, a woman new. Darkness swallows her, warm and comforting and finally, she feels whole.

After, when they lie tangled together, sweaty and spent, his hand trailing a path along Mallory’s spine, he says, “come home with me.”

This moment is finite. It feels like a dream suspended in time. Never to be broken, never to be done.

But it will.

She presses her lips to his, softly, a whisper of a promise. “Soon.”

 

-

 

There is no version of the story where the sky doesn’t turn red.

No version of the story where the crows don’t lead to the Antichrist’s house.

Mallory kisses Coco goodbye, and the other woman holds her tightly, unwilling to let her go. “Be careful,” she tells her, as if she knows her friend’s destination, where it leads, and how it ends.

“I will,” Mallory says with a smile that feels too tight on her lips, and slips away.

In the end, she is too late.

The Satanists are gathered around Devan when she arrives, the boy’s mouth smeared with blood. Emily lies lifeless on the floor by his crib, a hole gaping in her chest, spilling red into the carpet like wine.

There are no more prayers to say.

No more wishes to make.

“I’ve tried to help you,” Mallory says in a thin, strained voice.

The boy smiles. When he opens his mouth, the sound that comes out is eerie; a man’s voice in a child’s body, a croaking of stones against one another. “Every good purpose needs a sacrifice, don’t you think?” he says, and it’s an echo of bloodshed, an echo of horror. It’s an end of everything and a beginning of an end.

“He doesn’t need _your_ help, whore,” LaVey sneers, retrieving a knife from his robes.

Mallory lifts her hands. The Satanists fall to the floor like puppets with their strings cut off; they make no move as she walks over them. She takes the knife from the man’s unmoving hand.

“I will not let you win.”

She feels lifeless already, frost creeping up her veins. The cold of the steel seeps into her skin, the weight of it dragging her down. She tightens her fingers around the handle.

A door opens behind her. There is a gust of wind and goosebumps rise on her skin.

“You will see,” the boy whispers harshly, “I’ve already won.”

“Don’t touch him!” Timothy Campbell rushes past her to stand in front of the crib, barring Mallory’s way to the child. He extends his hand, as if to stop her, but his eyes stray to the body on the floor. His face grows ashen with horror.

“I’m sorry,” Mallory says, throat tight with pain, as she takes a step closer. “But I can’t let you stop me, not this time.”

“No—”

She waves her hand, as if she were swatting a fly, and Timothy collapses next to his wife, his face sinking into the puddle of blood.

Tears spill down Mallory’s cheeks.

Her time is done.

“My God,” she whispers, “why have you forsaken me?”

The Antichrist’s eyes lock with hers as she raises the knife. “You know why.”

She plunges the knife into his tiny chest, deep, deep, until its end exits from his back. She pulls it out then stabs again. And again. She cries, her voice torn and broken, light diminishing and dying with every stab of the knife.

At last, the boy lies lifeless in the crib.

Mallory sees only red through the blur of her tears. The last of her strength leaves her and she collapses against the bars, the knife slipping from her dripping hand.

The sun rises.

The buzzing in her ears never stops.

And then—

pain,

piercing,

like a broken heart.

“You took everything from me,” Timothy rasps out, and the gun in his hand looks red to Mallory’s eyes.

She presses her hand to her chest.

Her blood is warm, warmer than her skin, warmer than Devan’s.

It spills between her fingers—

red like pomegranates,

red like hellfire,

red like her wedding ring.

She wants to come home—

And then, at last, darkness descends.

Mallory dies.

 

-

 

God’s daughter steps into Hell.

The darkness does not choke the breath in her lungs.

The weight of her legacy does not push her to the ground.

In the throne room, she passes the souls awaiting judgement. They feel corporeal, like herself, and they turn to her like flowers turning to the sun.

There will be a time to remember, later. A time to grieve and atone, a time to consider her choices. But she is different now. Reshaped. Unbound, unmasked. (What is done with an object once it’s served its purpose?) The sacrifice has been made; come now, world, and collect your prize.

God’s daughter steps into Hell and remakes herself.

Drowned in blood, she has risen reborn.

Once she reaches the throne of bones, she falls to her knees.

She dips her head down, her hair falling like a curtain between them. “My Lord,” she says in a voice like honey, falling leaves, and an end of summer, “what will you do with me?”

There is a rustle of fabric and a click of boots against marble, and she imagines him descending the stairs, two at a time. She imagines he wears a burgundy suit, adorned with sapphires that match his eyes. She imagines he lifts her into his arms and carries her to their bedroom, where they stay until the Underworld is spilling with souls in need of guidance and they are forced to return to their duties, bestowing judgements, side by side, a King and his Queen. She imagines everything in the world, together, with him.

What he does, is kneel by her side.

He places a finger under her chin, nudging her head up so she can meet his eyes.

“What will you do with _me_?” Michael asks, angelic and nefarious all at once, lips stretching into a smile that holds a promise of forever. “For I am yours, till the end of time.”

Mallory wraps her hand around his own. The red jewel on her ring finger glitters in the candle light.

“As am I.”

He lifts her into his arms.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: And we're done! It's been a pleasure writing this monster of a fic and I'm infinitely grateful to everyone who's stuck around with it till the end. Thank you for the lovely feedback and your support, and I hope you've enjoyed the conclusion to the story 💕

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @ allbridgesburn


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